


Caged Birds Don't Sing

by SarcasticGayPotato



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/F, romantic-ish relationship, the scientists are alive, the story diverges from canon long before portal 1 begins
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-17
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-05-08 08:28:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14690292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SarcasticGayPotato/pseuds/SarcasticGayPotato
Summary: Caged birds don't sing, but they'll rattle the bars of their cage until the day they fly free.(On hiatus!)





	1. Chapter 1

BEEP  
  
BEEP  
  
BEEP  
  
  
The blare of an alarm clock cut through the air, disturbing an otherwise peaceful morning as it snatched the blissful unconsciousness from its victim.  
  
That victim was Chell, and if she hadn’t already been reprimanded for doing this with her last alarm clock, she would’ve chucked the mechanical menace across the room and into the wall by now.  
  
Sluggishly, she pushed herself into a sitting position, stretching her shoulders and yawning before shutting the alarm off.  There was no point in hitting the snooze button, not really. If she was late to testing, she’d just get stuck working overtime. Besides, it wasn’t like the extra five minutes would bring back the dream that had been so rudely interrupted.  
  
It was an odd yet familiar one.  She’d had it before, though how many times, she’d lost track.  Every time, it started with her standing in a small shed, the door in front of her slightly ajar.  Light trickled in from the crack, but she couldn’t quite see what was out there. However, every time she tried to open the door, she’d wake up, either by way of alarm blaring or simply coincidence shaking her awake in the middle of the night, only to roll over and find that the shed, the door, and whatever was behind it were gone.  
  
Such an infuriatingly simple concept, yet Chell found herself so invested in its outcome that each night held a trace of hope that it would be the night she’d finally see what was behind that door.  
  
  
She wasn’t given much time to dwell on all this, though, as she had only just pulled herself out of bed and gotten halfway through brushing her teeth when the speakers in her room buzzed to life, and the monotone, robotic voice of the announcer rang out.  
  
  
“Test subject #1498, please report to debriefing room #5.”  
  
  
A flare of anger sparked to life in Chell’s chest, and she aggressively finished brushing her teeth, practically storming out of the small bathroom connected to her room and slamming the door behind her as she tried to pull on the closest thing she had to a clean jumpsuit and tie her hair into a loose ponytail at the same time.  
  
The absolute _nerve_ of it all!  She’d been up for no more than five minutes, and they were already going to start pestering her?  She _knew_ testing didn’t start until 7:30 on weekdays, and while admittedly she couldn’t think of what day it was off the top of her head at first- it took her longer than she’d care to admit to realize that it was, in fact, Monday- she knew that it wasn’t a weekend. Her sense of time might’ve been scrambled as a result of too much time spent underground, but she at least knew when the weekends were.  
  
Even so, Chell made her way out the door and down the hall, forcing the scowl off her face and twisting it into the most neutral look she could manage. Surely there must have been a good reason for all this. After all, she wasn’t usually brought to a debriefing room. At least, not unless she had done something wrong.  
  
Passing other test subjects poking their heads out of their dorm rooms, she wracked her brain to try and think of something she might’ve done to piss her test overseers off, but for once, she came up short. She had been, by their standards, remarkably well-behaved the past week or so. No breaking alarm clocks, no smuggling food from the mess hall at dinner, no signing nasty things about scientists in front of people who couldn’t understand ASL- by Chell’s standards, she had been a saint.  
  
So why was she being sent here, she wondered?  
  
She made her way out of the test subject living quarters, an area of the facility seemingly stuck in the fifties, with its old, cracking floral wallpaper, carpet that had been run down into the ground by hundreds of test subjects coming in and out, and yellowing lights that constantly flickered but that nobody could be bothered to change. At least the hallways connected to test sections or debriefing rooms were marginally better- Chell theorized this was due to the fact that scientists frequented it much more than the test subject quarters, and so slightly more care was put into maintaining it. Instead of old carpet, there was slightly newer-looking tile, cleaned considerably more frequently, and instead of tacky wallpaper, the walls were painted all one color, and decorated with various signs and posters. Most of these were either long lists of safety warnings or merely Aperture finding some way to pat itself on the back by reminding everyone that they were leading the way into the future.  
  
There were several debriefing rooms here, each lined up one after another, one through ten.  Chell had only ever been inside numbers two and four, but she had reason to believe they were all identical anyway. There seemed to be no differences but the numbers painted on the door in bright white paint, like the large number five that she now found herself standing in front of.  
  
Perhaps today was the day that they finally told her that she was free to leave.  
  
If Chell could laugh, she would’ve.  
  
Now that was ridiculous. Aperture letting her go? They’d sooner create flying pigs- that is, if they hadn’t done that already.  
  
Chell had been stuck under their thumb for the past three years, and the more she struggled, the harder they pushed.  
  
She’d run away if she could, but as fate would have it, while Aperture may have only _practically_ owned her as a person, they _definitely_ owned her legs.  
  
How wonderfully ironic, Chell thought, that if not for Aperture, she wouldn’t be able to walk, run, or jump, yet with Aperture, all she was doing was jumping through hoops.  
  
Figuratively, of course; Chell hated being their lab rat enough without any further embarrassment.  
  
The metal implants seemed to burn whenever she thought about them, the normally easy-to-ignore robotics suddenly becoming all she could feel. Everytime she looked down, anytime somebody mentioned the things, she couldn’t help but think of how she came to get them in the first place.  
  
Chell had made a career for herself in athletics- professional alpine skiing, to be exact. She’d been at the top of her game year after year, ever since she started the sport in her late teenage years. It kept a roof over her head, of course, but that was hardly why she did it. She _loved_ it. The exhilaration, the speed, and the odd sense of calm that fell over her in the moment. It was as if every other distraction in the world faded into nothingness, and all she could see and think about was what was in front of her. How to move her body, shift her weight, time each moment, plan out what she was going to do steps in advance to finish the course in the most effective way possible.  
  
Each slope was like solving a puzzle, at speeds reaching nearly ninety miles per hour.  
  
It had been her entire life until five years ago.  All it took was one accident. One miscalculation, hitting a turn badly and losing balance, to send her careening towards a line of trees.  She had tried her best to avoid direct impact, clipping the tree with the side of her body, and sending her momentarily airborne, only to land at the exact wrong angle.  
  
Chell could still remember that moment as vividly as if it had only been yesterday. The searing pain shooting through her lower body, combating the biting chill of the snow she was pressed against. She remembered fighting for consciousness, struggling to get back up, despite knowing in the back of her mind that it was impossible, despite the nagging dread in the back of her mind that told her she wouldn’t be able to brush this off with a few weeks of rest.  
  
And as it turned out, her gut feeling had been correct. She had completely shattered both her tibia upon landing, and despite multiple surgeries, things weren’t looking up.  
  
She agonized over it for nearly two years, vainly hoping that physical therapy would fix it, or that she’d be able to fix her legs with sheer willpower alone. That, of course, didn’t happen; instead, the doctors eventually told her that she was going to have to use a wheelchair, likely for the rest of her life.  
  
Chell had just about given up at that point, any trace of hope left in her body having long since been drained by doctor’s visit after doctor’s visit, slowly sucked away by every person telling her that she’d get used to the wheelchair, a pitying smile on their faces. She had despised those two years more than any other period in her life, unable to adapt to this life that fate had seemed insistent on giving her.  
  
But then, in came Aperture. They swooped in like a hawk to grab her at her lowest, offering her the use of her legs once more, everything that she could do before, and more, all for free. They just needed a willing test subject for their new technology.  
  
And of course, they never _lied._ No, Chell had merely failed to read the small print. In the desperation she had felt to grasp this chance to go back to her life as she remembered it, she neglected to realise that ‘test subject for their new technology’ meant more than simply being the one they put the device inside of and sent on her way.  
  
No, it meant that every single day for the past three years, she’d been stuck working in their facility, performing test after test until they eventually decided that they had ‘enough data’ and her debt was paid. In other words, she was working for them indefinitely.  
  
And lucky for her, she was their _favorite_ kind of test subject. Given up by her parents at birth, and in and out of the foster system her whole childhood, she had no family to speak of. She had grown up introverted, and lived alone. There was no one to question if she went missing, making it all the easier for Aperture to sweep it under the rug if something happened.  
  
If she ran, Aperture would come knocking on her door with at least a dozen copies of the contract she’d signed, rubbing it in her face that it was either her legs or her freedom.  
  
Sometimes, Chell wondered if it’d be worth it to just try. Even if she had to go back to a wheelchair, even if her career was over for good. Maybe she’d be able to move on, find something else to dedicate her life to.  
  
But… perhaps it was stubbornness, or perhaps it was foolishness, but Chell had come too far to give up now. Three years worth of testing was not something she was willing to come out of with nothing to show for it.  And as unlikely as she knew it was that Aperture would let her go anytime soon, Chell had to hold on to some kind of hope.  
  
And it was with that thought that she took a sharp inhale, and pushed the doors open.  
  
The debriefing room was little more than a repurposed office space, the table removed and replaced with a series of cheap metal chairs lined up in row after row, with a whiteboard at the front of the room and a few haphazardly placed fake plants to make the room look slightly less utilitarian- though the caked-on layer of dust on their leaves made the point rather moot.  
  
The room was mostly empty, save for two scientists standing in front of the door, both of whom looked rather impatient.  
  
Chell recognized the man on the left as Russell Franks, a middle-aged man with a receding hairline, any wisps of hair that he had left being slicked together with far too much hair gel. In his hand was a clipboard, being fidgeted with enough for Chell to get a quick glance at the papers it held.  She didn’t need much more than a passing glance to recognize it. Her test subject record, filled with enough angrily scribbled notes to nearly start to overlap with the actual data.  
  
This man was one of her test overseers.  She’d often catch sight of him watching her through a glass observation room, scowling whenever she’d intentionally goof off or make a rude gesture towards him and the other scientists.  However, she didn’t quite recognize the scientist standing next to him.  
  
He looked younger than Russell, with a full head of thick black hair and facial hair to match. As if in stark contrast to Russell’s tired, bored-looking brown eyes, this other man’s gaze was a far more sharp and lively, almost hopeful-looking hazel.  
  
To someone who didn’t know Aperture like Chell did, he’d almost look inviting. Friendly.  
  
And that was exactly what unsettled her.  She didn’t trust those eyes, not in the slightest. Nor did she trust the uncomfortably pleasant smile that he shot her.  
  
The only people who smiled in Aperture were those who didn’t know better or those who knew more than they let on.  
  
“Ah! You must be test subject #1498. Mr Franks here has told me a lot about you.”  
  
The man nodded his head towards Russell, who merely pressed his lips into a thin line and looked from his partner to Chell, like he knew that Chell wasn’t buying this cheery act for a second, knew full well that nothing good about her had been said before she walked in.  
  
“Chell. This is Jake Waller.”  
  
Jake held his hand out as Russell introduced him, but Chell’s arms stayed at her sides. She had to _work_ for them; nobody said she had to be _nice_ to them.  
  
There was no falter in Jake’s hand as he returned it to his side, taking Chell’s rejection with a polite smile still resting on his face. Russell didn’t seem nearly as unfazed, and Chell didn’t miss the irritated look that he shot in her direction before speaking up, exasperation evident in the way he seemed to hiss the words out through his teeth.  
  
“All right, to the point- I’m sure you’re aware that for the past three years, you’ve been testing the limits and capability of the Aperture Science Biotic Limb Enhancer and Shock Absorption Implants, or as we’ve taken to calling them, ‘Longfall Implants,’ designed to protect against a fall from any height- and, in your case, connect advanced robotics to damaged nerve endings to allow for a full range of movement.”  
  
Chell resisted the urge to roll her eyes. This speech was one she had heard dozens of times by now, and it had long since stopped impressing her. She knew full well what they did; she’d been living with them for _three years._  
  
“We still fully intend to create a version of our shock absorption technology for the average consumer, but it’s proving to be more time-consuming than expected.”  
  
Chell’s attempt to keep her expression neutral faltered for a moment, and she narrowed her eyes, gritting her teeth to try to keep herself from scowling. Did they bring her here just to tell her that she was going to have to keep testing for them? As if she didn’t already know? If they were just going to rub her nose in it, she’d turn around right now.  
  
“But as you might not be aware of, this is not Aperture’s current priority. That would be a different project, one that Waller has been a part of for the past few years.”  
  
Taking this as his cue, Waller stepped forward, picking up a large briefcase that had been resting on one of the chairs behind him and holding it gingerly with both hands, before speaking up with the sort of pride in his voice that one might hear in somebody boasting about their child.  
  
“Indeed we have. It’s quite complicated, but to simplify it to an… understandable level for you, I’ll give you the basics. We’ve created a device that creates mini wormholes for the purpose of transportation. Place one side of it somewhere and the other somewhere else, and anything can travel freely between the two. Objects, animals, even people.”  
  
Despite herself, Chell let her eyebrows raise slightly higher on her face, her mild interest betraying her wishes to remain impassive.  She didn’t _like_ Aperture, not in the slightest, but she couldn’t deny that what they created was impressive.  
  
Wormholes? Instant transportation?  Something like that could change the surface world as they knew it.  That was, of course, assuming that Aperture ever dared to let technology like this slip out of their tight grasp. For all they talked about creating this tech for a good purpose, they hardly let any of it see the light of day anymore, obsessed with the idea that Black Mesa would take their ideas and steal their thunder.  And so, as more and more time passed, the company had become more and more secretive. Nobody knew any more than they had to.  
  
Which brought Chell to the question that had been on her mind since Waller started talking.  
  
_Why were they telling her this?_  
  
“Now, I’m sure you’re a bit confused as to how it all works, but you don’t need to worry about that.” As Waller spoke he started undoing the clasps on the case, allowing Chell to get a look at just how heavily protected this thing was, hidden behind various locks and what looked like bulletproof material.  “All you need to be concerned about is what it does, and how to use it.”  
  
The case opened to reveal a shining piece of technology, its white metal casing looking so clean that Chell could only assume it had just come out of assembly that day. It looked like some sort of strange firearm. It had a handle and trigger, but the body of the machine was mostly rounded and harmless looking, and had no visible space for ammunition to be inserted.  
  
“This is our pride and joy: the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device. There aren’t many like it; this is only the sixth one of this model. The most polished one to date, with _most_ of the kinks worked out.”  
  
Right. So there was probably still something life-threatening in it. Chell knew what ‘most’ meant. Just like how the slop they fed the test subjects in the cafeteria was ‘mostly’ real meat, or how Aperture had ‘mostly’ passed the last safety inspection.  
  
Slowly, she raised her gaze up from the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device- or as she was going to start mentally referring to it, ‘portal gun’- to look between Waller and Franks, awaiting some kind of further explanation. What this had to do with her. Surely they didn’t just bring her here to bolster their egos.  
  
“See, the device itself is functioning quite well, but it’s the tests that we’re having problems with. Or rather, the test _subjects._ As it turns out, moving through wormholes at high velocity can result in some tough landings, occasionally from… higher than average heights.”  Waller cleared his throat, and Russell scuffed his shoe against the tile floor. Chell didn’t want to ask how many broken bones this thing had caused.  
  
“As a result, these things have been ending up with very short lives. It’s delicate technology, and we can’t exactly afford for them to keep ending up broken because test subjects value trying to break their own fall over protecting important Aperture property.”  
  
What a tragedy.  
  
“But that is where you come in, Chell. See, as we mentioned before, Aperture is still in the process of making Longfall boots, an easily accessible version of the technology that you possess. This will most likely prevent any further accidents. Unfortunately, as you also know, that is taking more time than expected.  We can’t exactly put the Portal project on hold- science waits for no man. But we also can’t afford to outfit every test subject with the implants that you have. So…”  
  
Waller stepped back, gesturing to Russell to take over and finish his sentence.  
  
“We’re transferring you to the Portal project. From today until we finish the Longfall boots, you’ll be testing the ASHPD.”  
  
Chell was stunned, taking a moment to let it sink in, before surprise was swiftly replaced with fury.  
  
Not having the patience or care to get a piece of paper to write on for the sake of Jake, who she guessed wouldn’t be able to understand her, she furiously signed her response, hands flying in a flurry that would be difficult for anyone to translate, regardless if they knew sign language or not.  
  
_‘That is NOT on my contract. I’m stuck testing the implants because you gave them to me; I’m not just your helper monkey to test whatever project you see fit.’_  
  
She focused her glare on Russell as he took a moment to translate what she had said, hoping she could drill holes in his head if she tried hard enough.  
  
His lips pulled downwards into even more of a scowl, briefly glancing at Jake. Looking somewhat lost but seemed to be getting the gist of what Chell said based on reactions alone he stepped in before Russell could say anything in response.  
  
“That is to say, you’re still technically testing your implants. You’ll still be falling from large heights, and we’ll still be recording the results. We’re just adding an additional element. If you’d prefer, think of it less as a transfer and more of a… promotion. You’ll be helping us kill two birds with one stone, and… I’m sure that’s in both our best interests.”  
  
Jake kept his smile through his whole speech, but something in his eyes shifted towards the end of his sentence, something that made Chell’s skin crawl. Not wanting to look at him for any longer than she had to, she turned her gaze back to Russell, feeling far more comfortable glaring at someone who was upfront about their intentions, and didn’t feel the need to hide their poison behind fake pleasantries.  
  
“If you don’t feel like testing, I’m sure we could find the time to rip those implants out of your legs. We might even still have the wheelchair you came here in, if you’d like to leave in it too.”  
Russell’s voice was bitingly cold, punctuating his sentence with a step forward, as if hoping this action would intimidate Chell.  
  
It didn’t. She was hardly frightened of a middle-aged man who looked like he got winded going up the stairs.  However, she bit her tongue at his words. That was an option. She knew it, and he knew it. She _could_ do it, but she wouldn’t.  
  
Perhaps she was too stubborn for her own good, but somehow, that would feel like giving in. Admitting defeat, accepting the fact that Aperture had broken her.  And that was _not_ something she was willing to do. She was going to strut out of this facility, one day, on her own two feet.  
  
But until then…  
  
_‘Fine.’_  
  
She puffed her chest out a little and squared her shoulders as she signed her response, doing her best to make sure she didn’t appear to be caving to their demands. She was simply choosing the smartest plan of action, looking out for herself and her wellbeing. And if for some reason this whole portal business turned out to be worse than testing the Longfall implants- well, she’d cross that bridge when she came to it.  
  
Russell relaxed his stance at this, letting out a huff of air and stepping back, relieved that Chell didn’t put up more of a fight but far from happy. Jake, on the other hand, looked thrilled.  
  
“Well, if that’s resolved, you’ll be getting started right away. This ASHPD will be yours. Please do try not to break it. Don’t drop it, throw it, use it as a blunt force weapon, or attempt to break a fall with it. The more broken technology we end up with… well, the longer this all takes.”  
  
There went Chell’s plan of breaking it out of pure spite.  She wasn’t quite angry enough to risk giving Aperture a reason to put her even further into their debt.  
  
Reaching forward to take the portal gun from its case, Chell found herself surprised by its weight in her arms. It wasn’t as light as its futuristic design might’ve implied, but it wasn’t uncomfortably heavy either. It fit nicely into her grip, so much so that she had to wonder if they had made this one with her exact measurements in mind, planning to rope her into all this for the whole time. Knowing them, they probably had.

  
Her finger moved to rest on the trigger, and while she resisted the urge to see what would happen if she shot Jake or Russell with it, she could feel that it seemed tight and responsive without being too sensitive.  
  
As much as she hated to admit it, the device almost felt like it belonged with her.  
  
“If you’re done getting comfortable with it, we’ll send you on your way. Head down this hallway until you reach sector A, and enter the first chamber. Testing goes until 6:30 as usual, and dinner is still at 7:00.”  
  
Russell gestured towards the door with his clipboard as he spoke, seeming rather impatient with Chell taking any extra time to play with the device. She also couldn’t help but notice that he neglected to wish her good luck, which, if she didn’t already expect this man’s treatment of her to be about as enjoyable as sitting on a cactus, she’d be offended by.  
  
Offering one last glare towards the two of them, she turned on her heel and walked out, Portal gun still gripped tightly in her right hand, simmering discontent still lingering in her stomach.  
  
\----------  
  
It didn’t take long for her to reach the first test chamber. Unlike the Longfall chambers- which were far smaller, older, and slightly messier due to her being one of the only consistent test subjects- these were large, high-tech, and shining with what looked like brand new coats of white paint. Matched the gun they were built for, Chell supposed.  
  
The door to the first chamber was in front of her, but Chell took a moment to glance around the surrounding hallways before entering. It was strange; the hallways looked incredibly well kept, yet there wasn’t a soul to be seen. In the longfall testing section, there was always some scientist bustling past, absorbed in their papers. There was always something to be done, some feeling of life. This, however, looked like incredibly fancy storage space more than anything that was meant for people.  
  
The walls were mostly bare as well, with only security cameras peppered in various corners and the occasional sign directing where the various test chambers were. Aperture was full of cameras- Chell always assumed it was part of their overarching paranoia- but these seemed… different. Chell had never paid any mind to them before, but for some reason these felt like they were watching her specifically. Like their footage wasn’t just being played in front of a single security guard who wasn’t paying attention, like somebody was very carefully watching the feed of each one.  
  
It was… unsettling, to say the least. But then again, Waller had seemed pretty proud of this project, so Aperture was likely keen on having as much security in this area as possible.  Surely that was it. Chell was just being paranoid, letting Aperture get to her. She’d lived with this place for three years; she wouldn’t let it creep her out now.  
  
Shaking any doubt out of her mind, she approached the first chamber door.  
  
It opened automatically with a soft hiss and Chell stepped inside, letting it close behind her.  
  
Inside the room was much of the same. Every panel on the ceiling, floor, and walls was painted the same shade of bright white, and combined with the harsh fluorescent lighting, it strained on Chell’s eyes, prompting her to narrow them in a vain attempt to ease the discomfort. She’d have to put in a word with whoever was in charge of all this when she was done. Find the man who designed all this and make him spend a few minutes in his own creation, see how he liked it.  
  
After a moment or two, her eyes started to adjust, and she got a better look around the room.  Compared to the chambers she had been used to, it was tiny. On the floor was a big red button, and nearby, what looked like a metal cube sitting underneath a tube on the ceiling that Chell could only assume was a dispenser for the object.  
  
Cautiously, she walked toward the button, raising her foot to step on it before she paused, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck standing up. She was being watched again.  
  
She looked around, confirming that there wasn’t an observation room attached to this chamber like there often was for the Longfall testing. Instead, there was another security camera, positioned right above the door, its little red light shining forward, unmoving, unblinking.  
  
Chell glared at it. Rationally, she knew that there wasn’t anything special about it, that this was just standard procedure. But the skeptical part of her brain had to wonder if this was all some kind of trick. If Russell finally got sick of her goofing off and decided to humiliate her on camera and laugh about it with all his scientist buddies.  
  
Slowly, she moved her foot away from the button, and instead approached the cube, using her free hand to test how heavy it was.  To her surprise, she could barely lift it. The outside was made of metal, but they must have filled the inside with cement or something equally weighted.  
  
It took Chell longer than it probably should’ve to remember that she was holding a piece of technology that she was actually supposed to be using. She had nearly forgotten she was holding it, as the weight on her arm had somehow faded into an almost natural feeling. It was only now that she realized that she hadn’t actually tested the thing.  
  
Looking at the trigger, she noticed that it seemed to have a few modes, indicated by a small switch. It could be turned to the left, right, or in the middle. It was currently set to the leftmost side.  
  
Not exactly knowing what the switch did, Chell decided not to mess with it just yet, and instead simply aimed the gun at the wall and pulled the trigger.  
  
Rather than firing with a loud bang, the gun made a rather strange, yet oddly satisfying _‘woosh’_ sound that echoed with enough force to be noticeable, but not enough to cause discomfort.  However, the sound it made was hardly the most interesting part about it. That would have to be the bright blue light that shot out of the end of the gun, which, upon hitting the wall, formed into a large blue oval.  
  
Immediately curious, she hurried towards it, cautiously pressing her hand against it.    
  
Nothing happened.  Her hand didn’t go through the wall; it simply rested across the surface.  The only thing different was that she could feel an ever so slight current running across the surface, thrumming with soft vibrations.    
  
Chell could only assume that she needed to place a second one somewhere. If something was to go in, it’d need a place to come out.  
  
Flipping the switch to the right side, she aimed the gun at the empty space next to the blue portal and fired without hesitation.  
  
This time, the light was orange, and the moment it hit the wall, both it and the blue one shifted in appearance.  Instead of being a solid color, Chell could now see through both portals. And this time, to her (reluctantly-admitted) awe, when she stuck her hand through the blue portal, she could see it through the orange one.  
  
It was bizarre to look at, and even for someone who had found herself numbed to most of Aperture’s wonders, she couldn’t deny that this was impressive.  
  
Still, shaking herself out of her momentary child-like wonder, she remembered that she did have an objective here.  The solution to this puzzle was obvious: place the cube on the button, which would open the exit door. A quick glance around the room and Chell could assume that she was meant to use the portal gun to move the cube.  
  
She had been about to place a portal under the cube when she remembered the middle switch. Moving the switch to that setting, she pulled the trigger.  And… nothing happened. Wondering if she’d somehow managed to break it, she pulled it again, holding it for a little longer. This time, she noticed that the prongs on the end of the gun seemed to shake, and the end of the gun lit up ever so slightly.  
  
Furrowing her brow, Chell released the trigger, aimed the gun at the cube, and tried again.  
  
Suddenly, it was as if the cube were made of nothing but air, and as Chell moved the gun, she found the cube moved with her. The scientists had neglected to tell her that this thing didn’t _just_ create wormholes. Somehow, they had failed to mention what Chell could only assume was the ability to mess with gravity.  
  
Eager to get a move on with this newfound ability, Chell began to move the cube on her own towards the button, when she paused, still feeling the camera’s gaze burning into her.  
  
Looking from the camera and back to the cube she currently held suspended in the air, an idea crossed her mind.  
  
She couldn’t break the portal gun, but nobody said anything about not breaking _cameras._  
  
This one just so happened to be within reach, and as she approached with the cube, she found herself able to smash the box against the small device, watching it satisfyingly clatter to the ground.  
  
There. A statement had been made, and Chell was satisfied, turning back to the puzzle and solving it swiftly.  
  
As predicted, the door opened upon placing the cube on top of it, and despite her previous paranoia, nothing horrible happened as she walked past and out of the room.  
  
  
_“Test subject #1498, please proceed to the next chamber.”_  
  
  
Chell had barely taken a single step out of the first chamber when a voice suddenly rang out, nearly making her jump. However, once the initial shock wore off, it was replaced with confusion.  
  
The voice she had just heard was robotic and monotone, like the voice Chell was quite used to hearing from the announcer nearly every day. But this voice had been _feminine,_ unlike the male voice they had been using up until now.  
  
Did they just now decide to change what the announcer sounded like? Chell had just heard the usual version that morning. She figured that, in hindsight, it didn’t really matter; this one was just as robotically uninviting and dull-sounding as the last one, but she still couldn’t deny that it was a bit odd.  
  
Perhaps she’d ask someone at dinner if they knew anything about why the switch was made. For now, she had to get back to work.  
  
  
\----------  
  
The day flew by faster than Chell had expected. Despite her lingering annoyance towards the scientists for making her do this, she found that the change of pace wasn’t half bad. Everything she went through today was rather routine, each room only requiring the simplest of portal combinations, but it was different, and she knew that this was the only ‘breath of fresh air’ that she was ever going to really get down here.  
  
She had even managed to get used to the new announcer. It had caught her off guard a handful of times in the earlier half of the day, but by the end of her last chamber, she had gotten used to it.  
  
While she didn’t have strong feelings towards it one way or another, she supposed a part of her liked this one marginally better- though admittedly that might just be because she hadn’t come to associate it with telling her whenever she was about to get in trouble.  
  
But after she started making her way out of that section of the facility to head towards the cafeteria, she noticed something strange.  
  
The announcement system went off, warning about a section of the facility that Chell had never been in, mentioning a _slight_ malfunction in the air vents- that malfunction being that they weren’t working at _all,_ and everybody inside was getting lightheaded- but that wasn’t strange by Aperture’s standards.  
  
What was odd was the fact that it was the old announcer’s voice that rang out of the speakers.

Had they just been trying out the new voice for a short time? Or was it simply another malfunction?  
  
Chell pressed her lips together in a thin line, frowning up at a security camera as she left the portal testing area, and ignoring the way she could’ve sworn its gaze followed her out.


	2. Chapter 2

It had only been a few days since Chell had found herself reassigned from Longfall implant testing to working with the rather mysterious portal project. The day it happened, she had been furious enough to find herself merely focusing on the injustice of the situation, but now that a few days had gone by, curiosity and confusion had settled in.  
  
This project was apparently Aperture’s golden goose. Jake had spoken about it with such pride in his voice, and the chambers for testing the thing were consistently well-kept and shining.  Chell would have thought it would be the talk of the facility- yet to her surprise, there was a relatively large shroud of mystery surrounding it.  
  
At dinner, she had attempted to spark a conversation with a few other test subjects about the whole thing- she’d try talking to one of the scientists if they actually stopped turning up their noses and pretending she didn’t exist- yet she found herself with no more answers than she had to begin with.  
  
None of them knew anything. Sure, they each had their own unique horror story of whatever project they were involved in- one had found himself the unlucky subject of testing an experimental new drug for minor pain relief that had put him in a coma for the past week and a half, while another had been involved in a prototype massage chair that had broken his collarbone- but all shook their heads at talk of the portal gun.  
  
Some seemed interested by what Chell told them, but most of them seemed wary. Aperture was just full of good ideas gone bad, or insane ideas _unfortunately_ going right. If it sounded too good to be true, it probably was.  
  
According to them, before Chell knew it she’d get a finger severed off in one of those portals, end up somehow trapped in an interdimensional vortex, or a variety of other either completely plausible or completely ridiculous notions.  
  
Still, it was enough to make Chell cautious of the device from that point forward- she decided against following the strong temptation to look at the end of the gun while it was turned on- and to be mindful of how she used it.  
  
It was unsettlingly easy to get adjusted to it, with its smooth, comfortable grip, almost complete lack of kickback when firing, and quick, responsive controls.  Chell had only been at this for a few days, yet already she found herself forgetting that she was even holding it.  
  
Of course, that was also due in part to the fact that in the passing days, she had moved on to new testing tracks.  The first one had been simple enough, merely introducing her to the concept. With each new track, however, the tests became more challenging, more requiring of her focus.  
  
Unlike the Longfall testing, where the extent of what she needed to do rarely went beyond jumping off platforms, propelling herself off platforms, or intentionally falling off platforms, here she didn’t have the ability to daydream away or mentally stew in all her indignation towards the scientists who watched her from their little glass observation rooms like she was some kind of creature on display.  
  
No, the portal testing had quickly shifted from merely placing a portal or two and completing the test to moving through the equivalent of a giant brain teaser.  At first, it was only a little bit of a challenge, each requiring just a few moments of thought before it was easily figured out. Then, it got a bit harder; now, Chell had to try and fail a few times before she got it.  
  
It was starting to feel like these tests were less about the portal gun itself and more about testing the mind of the subject.  Which, if Chell was being frank, wouldn’t be surprising.  
  
She didn’t exactly _like_ it, feeling like she was being used even more than before, thrown into being a subject for something that was seeming less and less like what she had originally signed up for. She certainly couldn’t say that she was enjoying herself, either; it was very hard to do so when one felt so much like a prisoner. However, Chell couldn’t deny that it was _different._  It gave her the chance to exercise her brain, to take a break from the mundane routine that she had fallen into for the past three years.  She wasn’t _grateful_ for it, but for now, so long as the scientists didn’t push it any further than they already had, she’d take it.  
  
But as Chell entered her first chamber of the day, she found herself reminded of another little factor that had been bothering her.  
  
That voice.  
  
There was nothing inherently wrong with it; she didn’t even hear it that often. The most it ever did was tell her when to move on to the next chamber, or at the end of the day, spout out some data about how her test results fared against the average, and then inform her that she could be on her way.  
  
Chell could almost forget about it. _Almost._ But the nagging curiosity in the back of her head wanted an answer.  
  
So, at the end of her second day of testing, she managed to find a scientist (and catch up to him before he could power-walk away and pretend he didn’t see her) to ask about it, to ask if the change in voice for the ASHPD testing was intentional or not.  
  
She supposed she should consider herself lucky for even getting an answer out of the man, even if it was a dismissive, bare-bones response at best.  
  
“The ASHPD’s complex nature requires a different system, hence the different voice.”  
  
And with that, he brushed past her, not allowing any follow-up questions, and hardly giving Chell the time to process what she had just heard before disappearing around a corner and no doubt slinking off to whatever lab he belonged to.  
  
It was a logical answer, and Chell had no doubt it was accurate, but she couldn’t help but feel a twinge of irritation at the tone behind it. As if merely being asked a simple question was somehow a great inconvenience to him, because how dare a _test subject_ ask a question about anything.  
  
It rubbed Chell the wrong way, and now, every time she heard that voice, she couldn’t help but huff under her breath.  There wasn’t really anything all that special about it. How on earth was this voice system any more advanced than the last one? What, was it 0.02 seconds faster or something?  
  
Chell didn’t get it, but she assumed she wasn’t supposed to. She was just supposed to shut up and test. Luckily for them, the shutting up part, at least, came naturally.  
  
\-------------  
  
The first few tests of the day went slower than Chell had expected. She had started a new section today, and thus expected a spike in difficulty.  So far, that expectation was right. The tests were bigger, and while the puzzles themselves weren’t drastically harder, they required more steps to be completed, thus allowing more room for error.  
  
Of course, that meant ample chance for Chell to want to pull her hair out as she spent almost an hour on a single room that she kept _just barely_ messing up.  
  
At first, she thought it was her timing, and spent at least fifteen minutes trying to land the portals and make the jump at _just_ the right time. Then she realized that it _wasn’t_ her timing- she had actually missed a step. But in going back to try and do that step, she found herself stuck on a separate one, which this time actually _was_ a timing issue, and thus it seemed to get harder and harder the more frustrated and impatient she got.  
  
By the time she had nearly beaten the whole chamber, she forgot to switch which portal she was using, placed the wrong one, and needed to start over.  
  
Needless to say that if her vocal cords had not been out of commission since her youth, she would’ve let out a long, infuriated scream at the wall.  
  
Or at least at those damn security cameras.  
  
Not once in any of these chambers had Chell seen an observation room. No trace of a one-way mirror, tinted glass, or even just a room in plain view. It seemed like absolutely nobody was watching, aside from the security cameras.  
  
Chell had to admit that she found it a bit strange. Sure, there was likely at least one person watching the security footage, but surely that person wasn’t a scientist. It was likely just some underpaid security guard, there to catch any suspicious activity. Hardly somebody qualified to be observing a test and writing down the results.  Of course, there was always the chance that they had somebody going over the feeds from these cameras after the fact, but that seemed far more tedious and time-consuming than it needed to be. It just didn’t make sense.  
  
Why not just keep the observation rooms?  Could scientists really not be bothered to come down here themselves? Chell had yet to see any of them in this section of the facility whatsoever.  
  
What made them so wary of being here?  
  
Sure, it wasn’t exactly the most welcoming part of the facility- the cold white walls and clinical nature of every hallway and chamber made the place feel like a hospital- but a fair amount of that uneasiness could have quite easily been remedied with just a small amount of effort to humanize the place. Even some of those tacky fake plants, some more comfortable-looking chairs, some variation in the paint on the walls, or even those ‘definitely not Aperture propaganda’ motivational posters that seemed to be everywhere else in the facility.  
  
Chell didn’t know what desensitized, tone deaf scientists designed this part of the facility, but she could only assume it had been made by somebody who knew they’d never actually have to walk these halls. Made it functional, not livable.  
  
She huffed, shaking her head and gathering her thoughts, realizing that she had been standing in front of the exit to the chamber she had finally beaten for a good five minutes or so, lost in thought.  
  
It was odd, not being yelled at for doing so. If she had tried to stop testing in the Longfall testing, sooner or later one of the scientists watching from the observation room would turn on their microphone to yell at her, threatening her with any number of repercussions if she didn’t haul ass.    
  
But all was silent now.  Chell still felt the gaze of the camera on her back, but no voice echoed through the chamber.    
  
It made the sound of her Longfall implant clacking across the ground seem ten times louder as she left the chamber, the sound ringing in her ears and sending a strange chill climbing up her spine.  
  
For once, she was genuinely thankful to hear that monotone, robotic voice when she made her way to the next chamber. It said nothing profound, merely telling her to proceed- which was a rather pointless action considering Chell was practically to the next room by the time the voice spoke- but hearing something, _anything_ other than the sound of her own footsteps did help.  
  
Chell could only imagine what it would be like if she was stuck in these chambers for longer than a work day. Surrounded by nothing but unstirring silence? A silence that her own vocal cords couldn’t break?  
  
She could only imagine she’d go mad. Wouldn’t anyone?  
  
And, speaking of going mad, she had another test chamber to do.  
  
  
The room was massive, far larger than the last in both length and height, with the exit door seeming tiny from where Chell stood. The ceiling was lofty, towering above her head, and in the middle of the room was a sizable gap with a steep fall downward, into a pit that must’ve been at least three stories deep, cutting off the entrance and exit platforms.  
  
To the left of the entrance was a weighted cube, sitting patiently beneath its dispenser, no doubt waiting to be eventually placed on the shining bright red button on the opposite side of the room, which was connected to the exit.  
  
On the very edge of the entrance platform was an aerial faith plate- something that Chell was familiar with from her time in Longfall testing. Judging by her preexisting knowledge of how the faith plates were calibrated, she could tell that the gap was too large to simply be cleared by jumping off the edge with the faith plate alone.  
  
That, she supposed, was where the bridge came into play.  
  
The ‘hard light bridge,’ as she had heard it called, was an unnaturally bright blue shade, partially see-through, and did _not_ look stable, given that Chell had no idea how it worked, how it supported weight, or what the likelihood was that it would give out on her. However, it was able to be moved around the room at will, which made it essential in certain chambers. One portal at an entry point and the other anywhere a portal could be placed, and one could move the bridge nearly anywhere they pleased.  
  
While most of the left wall was painted to specifically be an unusable surface for the portal gun- a disappointing fact Chell discovered, dashing her dreams of simply using the device anywhere she pleased- there were two spaces available, small splashes of white amongst a sea of dark grey panels.    
  
The closer of the two spaces was much too high up, and far too close to the entrance platform to clear a jump to the other side, so she quickly discounted it.  
  
The other one was just close enough that, if Chell could move the bridge there, she’d be able to just barely land on top of it at the end of the arch of the jump she’d make in with the aid of the aerial faith plate.  
  
All she needed was to bring a cube with her, remember to place the right kind of portal when she actually got to the bridge, lest she risk losing the bridge from under her feet and having to start over, and she’d be able to carefully make her way to the opposite side of the room and complete the test.  
  
She’d have to be mindful of how quickly she approached the jump- there was the possibility of running at it too fast and overshooting the bridge- but considering she had some experience with these things, she was fairly comfortable in her ability to make a rough estimate.  
  
Quickly placing both her portals and getting the bridge in place, she grabbed a cube and crossed the distance to the faith plate in a few long strides.  
  
Combining a small jump of her own with the movement of the plate, she felt her body propel into the air, the chamber rushing past in a blur as her focus zeroed in on the bridge in front of her, and as she descended towards it, her positioning _just_ right-  
  
Her focus was shattered by a voice breaking through the sound of rushing air in her ears. _Three_ voices, in fact, all identical, chiming out perfectly in sync.  
  
“There you are.”  
  
“I see you.”  
  
“Target acquired.”  
  
Chell had barely begun to turn her head towards the source of the voices, barely begun to register what they had said, barely seen the flash of three red lasers being shined directly at her, when the sound of gunshots echoed through the chamber.  
  
The time it took for the sound of the shot to register in her mind and then the pain that followed was no more than a heartbeat, yet it felt like hours.  She felt three projectiles hit her from the right side, with one hitting her in the ribs and the other two just below that.  
  
Her momentum suddenly thrown off, her body twisted mid-air in response to the shock and pain of the shots, causing her to fall shy of landing on the bridge, and instead threw her into it, the edge painfully digging into her gut and causing her head to snap forward and slam into the flat surface of the bridge, and promptly falling to the bottom of the pit, just short of the other side.  
  
While her implants absorbed the shock of the fall, that didn’t stop her from keeling over the moment she hit the ground, eyes squeezed shut and gasping for breath. It had taken her a moment to realize she hadn’t been shot with genuine bullets, and instead, only rubber ones.  
  
She wasn’t bleeding, and she definitely wasn’t dying, though that fear had crossed her mind in the split second when the bullets had hit her. Still, even being non-lethal, the points of impact sent waves of pain outward every time Chell moved, and combining that with having had the wind completely knocked out of her and hitting her head hard enough to see stars, Chell decided that she was most comfortable laying on the cold tile floor for a couple of moments, trying to let her rattled brain catch up to what had just happened.  
  
She had been shot at.  
  
_She had been SHOT AT._  
  
While it took a good few moments longer than it likely should’ve for the gravity of this to sink in, once Chell’s world stopped spinning, she forced herself upwards into a sitting position, ignoring the fresh ripple of pain it caused, and looked around the room, desperately trying to see what on earth had fired at her.  
  
“Target lost.”  
  
“Are you still there?”  
  
“Searching.”  
  
The voices chimed out again, and although Chell instinctively brought her hands up to try and shield herself the best she could, it didn’t seem necessary.  
  
The sound had come from the right side of the chamber, where Chell noticed that the room kept going slightly further than a first glance from the entrance would have had her believe. On the rightmost wall, there was a small alcove, barely more than a few feet wide and no more than a couple feet high. It was high up relative to where Chell was at the bottom of the pit, but she could very faintly see red laser sights moving round from inside, as if something was actively looking around.  
  
Of course, said sights were thin, barely noticeable when Chell was looking at them from this position, and certainly near impossible to see from the starting position in the chamber.  
  
Chell was confused at first, but that confusion was very swiftly replaced with complete disbelief, followed by a lividness that managed to burn hotter than the searing pain in her side and her head.  
  
Aperture had just put her in a test chamber where she’d be shot at. With rubber bullets, sure- but still _shot at._   Somehow, that didn’t seem to have much of anything to do with testing the Longfall implants, other than the fact that if she hadn’t had them, she could’ve very well ended up with several broken bones, at the very least.  
  
Which, as she reminded herself, was still only something that needed to be tested by falling off high platforms. Being shot at did absolutely nothing but hurt like hell.  
  
Taking a sharp inhale, she reconciled that simply sitting on the floor wasn’t going to change anything. Whether anyone was actually watching those cameras, she still didn’t know, but she wasn’t getting any sort of indication that the scientists were simply going to open the doors and let her out in the middle of a test.  
  
She was going to have to actually solve it properly if she wanted to get out of here.  
  
  
Carefully pushing herself to her feet, she allowed herself a moment to make sure that she could move without any sort of crippling agony before making her way back to the side of the gap closest to the entrance, where there was a small ladder for getting out of the pit in scenarios such as these.  
  
Once situated back on top of the platform, she did her best to get a better look at the room.  
  
She hadn’t timed her jump wrong, that much she was certain of. If she hadn’t been hit, she would’ve made it. But judging by what she had seen of the space the bullets had come from, she would be in the line of fire for that jump no matter what.    
  
And so, she found her gaze brought back to the previously thought useless portal space that was far higher up and in the middle of the wall.  
  
Cautiously, she placed the bridge on that surface instead. It was close to the ceiling, but left enough room that Chell was mostly certain she wouldn’t end up hitting her head.  
  
It didn’t make sense at first. While she was certain she could land on top of that bridge if she had to, though it might require a bit more effort to ensure she didn’t slide off the edge with her momentum, she definitely wouldn’t be able to jump from that bridge to the other side of the room.  
  
She brought a hand up to her forehead, vainly trying to soothe the ache of hitting it as hard as she had, and trying to help her brain along in figuring out what she was doing and why before she risked throwing herself in the line of fire again-  
  
_The line of fire._ The thought hitting her as suddenly as the bullets she had just been shot with- though mercifully not as painful- Chell’s eyes darted from the bridge, to where she knew that alcove was, even if it was just out of sight. It had been small, and whatever was shooting her wasn’t directly at the entrance of it. Its shots wouldn’t be able to hit her if she was that high up.  
  
Gritting her teeth and mentally crossing her fingers, she made the jump again, just barely resisting the urge to flinch and close her eyes.  
  
She let out a hiss of pain at the admittedly rough landing, but thankfully found her feet on top of the hard light bridge rather than at the bottom of the pit.  
  
From here, she could more clearly see the laser sights, but as she had predicted, they were unable to aim up towards where she was.  And, as she could better see from this angle, there was a portal space above the exit, that, if she positioned herself correctly, she’d be able to move the bridge she was currently standing on while still staying above the shooting range.  
  
Chell supposed she was supposed to feel a sense of satisfaction, now seeing the answer to the chamber and being able to carry it out with relative ease, but there wasn’t a trace of anything positive in her body.  
  
All she felt was outrage. And pain. Quite a bit of a pain.  
  
This chamber was designed and placed where it was to trick test subjects. Chell hadn’t been exposed to the idea of being shot at during testing; how on earth was she ever supposed to predict something like that? Not to mention the fact that the most straightforward solution was essentially a trap!  
  
Chell could feel herself practically grinding her teeth into dust as she made her way out of the chamber, leaning against the wall of the hallway right outside.  
  
_"Test subject #1498, you are being excused from testing for the rest of the day on account of being the seventeenth test subject to be injured in this chamber, thirteen of which suffered minor concussions. Please make your way to the medical bay, located in section C."_  
  
Now that was a surprise.  
  
Chell looked up, catching sight of a security camera whose gaze was fixed on her.  That robotic voice had just dismissed her early. A scientist had input the order, as they would with the regular announcer, but Chell couldn’t help but narrow her eyes at what was said.  
  
Purely facts, sure, but those numbers started to gnaw at her, even as she made her way out of the test track and towards the medical bay.  
  
Seventeen other people got hurt in this chamber, very likely in the same way that Chell had been. Chell had no real way of knowing how many test subjects had been in and out of this testing track, but she couldn’t imagine that it was all that many.  She had been in the middle of a testing track, and without Longfall implants, she couldn’t see all that many people getting even that far without injury beforehand.  
  
So that only made things worse. If seventeen people was a high percentage of the test subjects that had been through that chamber, that meant that most everybody fell for the same thing that Chell did, so used to the chambers before them that they were lulled into a false sense of security. Trusting that Aperture would be fair in the construction of these puzzles.  
  
Even just mentally repeating those words back to herself made Chell want to kick herself.  
  
Trusting Aperture? Even subconsciously? It got her hurt. It got other people hurt, likely far worse than she was. Broken bones, concussions- and Aperture hadn’t changed it. They had done nothing to even _warn_ their test subjects, let alone removing the chamber after such a high number of injuries.  
  
Sure, Aperture and getting hurt went hand in hand, but even Chell could admit that it was almost always a result of negligence. Poor test design, bad supervision, ideas that hadn’t been fully thought out. Aperture was most certainly at fault for these, and Chell would not be quick to defend them, but at the very least, Chell had never seen anything _intended_ to cause harm to test subjects. Not once had she seen a test made specifically with the intent to hurt the unknowing test subject inside.  
  
But this? She had no doubt that this was made with the explicit knowledge that some, if not most people who went through it for the first time, would get shot. By… whatever it was.  
  
Chell hadn’t gotten a good look at the things when they fired at her, but judging by the voices that had sounded when the guns went off, she could assume it was an automated system. Some sort of turret that could track movement, set to fire at anything that fell into its line of sight.  
  
Somehow, that seemed far more akin to something that a military base would need than a science facility.  
  
Letting out a frustrated snort, she pushed the door to the medical bay open, being greeted with the familiar sight of the waiting room.  
  
She’d been in and out of this place a lot when she first came to Aperture, between the initial surgery for the implants and several visits afterwards, both for routine checkups and to deal with any issues early on.  
  
The decor was a strange clash of two sides of Aperture, with clinical and cold-looking white walls and tile, contrasted by a large splash of tacky decorating sense: fake plants shoved into every corner, haphazardly organized stacks of magazines, and an alarming number of posters describing various symptoms to be aware of that could be a result of oddly specific test elements, such as the possibility of having one’s blood be slowly replaced with sugar water because of Aperture’s experimental cough syrup.  
  
It wasn’t a room that Chell would call cozy, but at least there were some signs of life in it.  
  
She still remembered her first time coming here, and the bundle of nerves that had eaten away at her stomach. She had been excited, for lack of a better word. Naïve to Aperture and the horrors it held, unknowing of just what she’d be getting herself into. She had sat in this room believing that she’d walk out of Aperture on her own two feet, go back to her career, and start her life back up where she had left it on that slope.  
  
Now, Chell could only wish she was able to go back in time and warn herself that in only a few years, she’d be getting shot at, possibly concussed, not even having seen real sunlight in three years.  
  
Funny, how one’s perception of a simple room could change so quickly in such a relatively small amount of time. What she once saw as a beacon of hope now left the bitter taste of regret in her mouth.  
  
Plastic chairs lined the walls, and Chell could see a small handful of test subjects sitting in them, each dotted across the room, all seemingly trying not to sit next to someone else. Some had bloody noses or nasty bruises, while others had nothing visibly wrong but looked very concerned.  
  
A part of Chell wondered if she ought to sit next to one such test subject, to silently attempt to offer them some reassurance that whatever Aperture had done to them, they could probably reverse it too. But as she took a quick glance towards the wall and noticed a poster describing a highly contagious new strand of bird flu that had broken out recently, which involved the possibility of growing feathers, Chell decided against it, settling on mentally wishing well the poor unfortunate souls such as herself and sitting down in the chair farthest away from anyone else.  
  
Her butt had hardly touched the hard, uncomfortable plastic when the doors at the back of the waiting room opened, and a familiar-looking woman stepped out.  
  
“Chell? I was just informed that I’d be seeing you today. Come on back.”  
  
Chell recognized the doctor as Sylvia Grant, a relatively young doctor who turned to working at Aperture to pay off her student loans directly after finishing medical school. Only standing an inch or two above Chell with the aid of high heels, she had black hair tied into a messy bun, and a pair of glasses almost always slightly askew on her nose.  
  
She hadn’t been the main doctor Chell had been assigned for the Longfall surgery, but Chell had ended up in Sylvia’s office for most of her scrapes and bruises from testing. She had yet to see Sylvia in any situation outside of the small handful of times she had banged herself up badly enough to warrant actually getting patched up, but she respected the young doctor’s familiarity.  
  
It was refreshing not to be addressed as ‘test subject #1498’ for once in her life. To be called by her name, like she was actually a person.  
  
Of course, that was a depressingly low bar to set, but at this point, Chell would take anything.  
However, as she got up and made her way to one of the examination rooms in the back, she found herself surprised that news of her injury had reached the medical bay so quickly. There were other people who had been here before her, and judging by how restless they seemed, some of them had been waiting a while.  
  
How and why had a scientist taken the effort to expedite the news of Chell needing medical assistance to the top of the list amongst everything else?  It was unnaturally fast- so much so that Chell found herself returning to her own mental debate, wondering if there really was someone watching the cameras more closely than she had originally given credit for.  
  
In fact, the automated voice had mentioned her injury right after she left the chamber, which surely meant that there was someone sending that command the second Chell left the room.  
  
It seemed like an awful lot of effort for scientists who had never tried to care before.  
  
\----------  
  
“All right, so nothing’s broken, nothing’s sprained, and it looks like you’ll just have some pretty nasty bruising on your side. It’s not looking like you have a concussion either, but if you feel any dizziness, persistent headaches, nausea, or ringing in your ears, come back and see me right away. If not, then you should be good to go by tomorrow- just put ice on the bruised areas, and be aware that you’re likely going to be very sore.”  
  
Sylvia barely looked up from her papers as she spoke, scribbling something down in handwriting that Chell couldn’t even begin to read on account of how messy it was.  
  
Even just glancing around the small room, it seemed that Doctor Grant had basically been living in this examination room, or at the very least, made an office for herself in it. Medical records sat in precarious piles around her computer, and while there was definitely an effort made to keep certain parts of the room as tidy and sanitary as possible, the small corner with her desk seemed to have fallen into slight disarray, with a few empty coffee mugs and plastic utensils scattered around it.  
  
Not exactly the environment one would hope for in a medical setting, but Chell couldn’t find it in herself to bother being upset about it. If the doctors were treated even two times as well as the test subjects, Chell still felt immense pity for her.  
  
Still, Chell had hardly been there for fifteen minutes before she found herself being ushered out the door, and she couldn’t help but feel a pang of disappointment that she hadn’t been able to convince Sylvia to recommend her an extra day of rest in that short period of time.  
  
The interaction had been short, Sylvia no doubt having experience with doing these things as quickly as possible, considering that Aperture’s medical bay was likely short-staffed for all the countless, bizarre injuries that happened on a day to day basis across the facility. She simply gave Chell a once-over to make sure that nothing was seriously wrong, had her take some painkillers and giving her an icepack, then sent her on her way.  
  
She had been perfectly polite about it- leagues better than any of the scientists- but even Chell could see that in the time that had passed from her last visit, the young doctor had gotten more tired. No energy was put into pleasant small talk, reassurances, or even a pitying smile. She had gotten straight to the point, and booted Chell out the moment she was done.  Aperture had finally started to wear her down, like it did to all things.  
  
And that was reaffirmed right away, as Chell walked out of the medical bay and saw those test subjects again, easily able to pick out which of them had been here for too long- the ones with blood, mucus, or god knows what else dripping down their face, and a vacant look in their eyes.  
  
Aperture sucked the life out of anything and anyone who stayed in it too long, and Chell found herself remembering to be mindful that the same didn’t happen to her.  
  
  
Chell slowly made her way back to her room- making no special effort to hurry, between the still throbbing pain throughout her body, despite the icepack and the slow-to-kick-in painkillers, and the fact that it was only the middle of the day and she had nowhere she had to be- passing by scientists and test subjects alike.  
  
She could feel her mind going in circles, going over the events of the past hour or so, repeating them back to herself as she plopped herself down on the side of her bed, keeping one hand holding the icepack in place and using the other to gingerly rub at her forehead.  
  
She was expected to march right back into testing tomorrow. She was expected to walk back to testing like nothing happened, and continue throwing her neck out for Aperture’s sake. God only knew what element was going to be in the next chamber that they _wouldn’t_ tell her about. Perhaps next it’d be pits of fire, walls with spikes on them, or something equally ridiculous.  
  
It wasn’t like she’d be able to complain about it; what would that do? She could kick and scream- metaphorically at least- and make a fuss, but in the end it would all boil down to the same thing.  
  
Either suck it up and deal with whatever Aperture threw at her, or lose the implants.  
  
A day didn’t go by that Chell didn’t wonder if it would just be easier to go without the implants, especially now, now that she had just been _shot at_ for them. If she gave them up now, she’d be able to leave Aperture without being put through any more of their tests, any more of their sick attempts to watch her struggle.  
  
But she equally knew that she’d never be able to live with herself if she gave up now. She was going to leave Aperture in one piece, but she was going to walk out on her own two feet.  
  
Unfortunately, she knew the ‘in one piece’ part of that could be in jeopardy if things kept going like this, if Aperture kept throwing dangerous testing elements at her without warning, expecting her to be lulled into a false sense of security, to fall into a pattern only to intentionally shatter it in front of her.  
  
If she kept going about this the way Aperture wanted her to, she’d only get hurt again. She didn’t know if it’d be better or worse than rubber bullets, but she wasn’t going to wait around to find out.  
  
Chell would not be a sheep sent to slaughter. She was not going to put blind trust in a facility that conned their way through all their problems.  
  
If she was to continue testing for Aperture, fine- but she was going to start doing these tests her way. And her way was going to involve breaking some rules.  
  
And if the scientists had a problem with it? Chell would be more than happy to strut right up to their offices and give them a formal apology, and promise to change her behavior- as soon as they did the exact same thing in return, and started offering damn good reasons as to why they were having their test subjects shot at.  
  
When Aperture started giving Chell a reason to follow the rules, she would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright so, I mentioned this on tumblr, but I feel the need to mention it here as well, since I've received a handful of very nice comments on the matter: If you like this story, especially if you're fond of Chell, check out 'Immunetoneurotoxin' on tumblr. They're my sort-of unofficial content editor, and helped make some rather big changes to Chell's backstory present in the first chapter. You have them and their good ideas to thank for it being what it is, so go give them and their writing some love! This fic wouldn't be half as strong without their help.
> 
> (EDIT) ALSO! Everybody please check out the fanart that 'the-dangerous-mute-lunatic' did on tumblr of a scene from this chapter!
> 
> http://the-dangerous-mute-lunatic.tumblr.com/post/174255087319/as-chell-walked-out-of-the-medical-bay-and-saw 
> 
> It's absolutely beautiful and I'm completely floored by her skill as always. It really helps bring the scene to life, and I'm so lucky to have someone as talented as her creating content inspired by something I wrote.


	3. Chapter 3

As per the doctor’s orders, as well as her own preference, Chell spent the rest of the day taking it easy. She mostly lounged around her room, taking an extra long hot shower and sneaking an extra portion of food at dinner. She went to bed early, hoping that the extra sleep would aid her in making the next day as painless as possible.   
  
But to say that she actually did get extra sleep would be a bit of an overstatement.   
  
Lying in bed, she could do. Unfortunately, there were two persistent factors keeping her from falling into any kind of deep sleep.   
  
The first of the two was that every time she tried to let her mind relax, she found it coming right back around to the events of the day, making a fresh batch of fury boil to life in her gut and keeping her from anything close to relaxation. She’d replay what had happened, taking a small amount of satisfaction in imagining one day throwing the scientists into their own test chamber and watching _ them _ get shot with rubber bullets.   
  
The second problem was that by the time she got to bed, the painkillers had started to wear off, and her ice pack had long since melted into a vaguely room-temperature lump. Because of this, every time she managed to chase away her thoughts of vengeance long enough to start creeping closer to unconsciousness, all it took was absentmindedly rolling over to suddenly shock her awake with a fresh wave of pain.   
  
She had taken a quick look at herself when changing into her sleep clothes that evening, casting a dreading gaze at her abdomen and side to see just how bad it looked. The beginnings of bruises had already started to show, with more precise ones where the bullets had hit her, and a larger, more splotchy one on her stomach, where she had been thrown into the hard light bridge.    
  
If they looked nasty now, Chell could only imagine what they’d look like in the morning.   
  
In the end, she found herself in a horribly awkward configuration, having twisted her body into a somewhat unnatural position to attempt to keep any pressure off the bruised areas, while still trying to at least be comfortable enough to fall asleep. At the same time she was  _ also  _ doing everything she could to think of something pleasant, instead of how badly she wanted to take one of those weighted cubes to a scientist’s face.   
  
Mercifully, exhaustion won out in the end, and she managed to slip into a somewhat uneasy rest, allowing her body a few hours of REM sleep before she would be forced out of bed by that dreadful alarm once more.   
  
When she woke, her body ached, her limbs were sore, and she quickly discovered that the act of bending over was something that she was going to have to avoid at all costs, considering the immense amount of discomfort that it caused.   
  
But despite that, she wasn’t sure if she had felt this alive in years.   
  
What was normally a routine of lazily slapping at her alarm and dragging herself reluctantly out of bed was suddenly fueled by an intense fire burning in her gut, pushing her out of bed and through the actions of getting ready, egged on only further by the discomfort that many of these actions inspired. Every ache and pain that she felt was just further motivation to do what was coming next.   
  
Chell was going to test for Aperture, and she was going to relish every moment of it.   
  
She was going to make the scientists wish that they didn’t have her as a test subject, make them beg for her to leave. She was going to do everything in her power to make their lives a living hell while still doing exactly as they asked. She may not have been able to make them go through their own tests, but she’d still give them a taste of their own highly dangerous medicine.   
  
If Aperture was allowed to be unfair, so was she.   
  
And so it was with that attitude that she marched out of her room and down the hall, keeping her head held high and her strides long. The sound of her Longfall implants hitting the floor becoming almost rhythmic, with the thump of them against the carpet of the test subject quarters or the clack of them against the tile finding ways to harmonize with the beat of Chell’s heart, thrumming in the back of her mind like war drums.   
  
If she had been paying attention to anything other than that pounding or looking at anything other than simply glaring straight ahead, she might’ve noticed the way that people seemed to jump out of her way. Fellow test subjects on their way to their own sections of the facility gave her a wide path, and even some scientists who normally would’ve never dreamed of moving aside for a  _ test subject _ stepped to the side, clearly not wanting to be in Chell’s way.   
  
Her outrage burned like a wildfire, and so it was only natural that those around it would want to get out of its path, feeling the sweltering heat that came off of her presence alone.  Most of the people she passed likely didn’t even know why she was angry, and definitely didn’t have the slightest clue what she planned to do about it, but they knew they didn’t want to be in the way when she did it.   
  
That was fine by Chell. Right now, the only person she cared about was whoever was staring at her from behind those cameras.   
  
By the time she reached the Portal testing area, she had long since passed by any scientists or test subjects with their concerned or confused looks, and had made her way into the part of the facility that she now knew to be near completely deserted, leaving Chell alone to stew in her determination and prompting her to focus her gaze onto the first security camera she spotted, meeting its unblinking red gaze in a silent challenge.   
  
_ ‘Just watch me.’ _ _   
_ _   
_ \----------   
  
Chell was set to pick up right where she left off the day before, thrust right back into the middle of the testing track, rather than starting at the beginning.  Admittedly, this was a bit disorienting, as she had started to get accustomed to having the first chamber or two of the day be a bit of a warmup, allowing her to properly get in the mindset before being thrown into more difficult puzzles.   
  
But, in a way, she supposed this was even better.  She  _ didn’t  _ want to get herself in the same mindset this time. She wasn’t setting out to solve these puzzles the way they had been designed; she needed to look at this with the eye of an outsider. Being thrown into the middle of it all without the chance to slip into old habits was likely for the best.   
  
And as she stepped into her first chamber for the day, she formulated her basic plan: observe the chamber, mentally take it apart; figure out what she was supposed to do, and deliberately reject that option. Look for every way around the steps she was supposed to take, find what could be meddled with. Then, when she found something to her liking, all she’d need to do was execute, and hope that the eye behind those cameras was watching.   
  
  
The next chamber was drastically different from the one before it. Where the one she’d started yesterday had been a relatively open, lofty chamber, this one was compact. With low ceilings and a non-linear room design, the small handful of twists and turns within the room reminded Chell far more of a maze for a mouse than she’d prefer.   
  
Directly in front of the entrance, there were two things- first, a wall with a small sheet of glass that showed the exit door on the opposite side of the room, and second, directly in front of that sheet of glass, a small pit, about five feet wide and fifteen feet deep.   
  
There was nothing to the left except a wall, but to the right was a sharp turn down a small hallway that Chell could only assume snaked around to the exit. However, given her experience yesterday, she decided against simply marching down it, instead taking an extra second to be a tad more cautious in her observation, squinting her eyes to search a little bit closer for what she knew was no doubt hiding somewhere just out of sight.   
  
A little red laser.    
  
As she had expected, hidden just out of immediate line of sight, was another one of those turrets, waiting right before the second turn into the other half of the room.   
  
Chell gritted her teeth, the ache in her side more than enough of a reminder of what would happen if she wasn’t careful in proceeding with this chamber.   
  
Carefully, she made her way down the hallway, keeping a cautious eye on the laser sights so she could stop just before she’d fall into its path.   
  
From what she could see of the little alcove it was tucked away in, the floor beneath the thing was a portal surface, unlike the rest of the hallway. That stood out like a sore thumb.  Aperture wanted her to do something with that spot.   
  
Doubling back to the first room, she noted that the inside walls of the pit were also painted the same bright white, while the floor was not.   
  
While Chell had yet to see one of these turrets properly, and thus couldn’t know for certain if they were or were not stationary, logic told her that she could, in fact, move them. If she placed a portal underneath it from around the corner and then used a portal on the inside of the pit to chuck the thing in there, where it would be harmless, she could safely pass.   
  
While she still considered hiding the turrets to be a dirty, potentially dangerous trick, she had no doubt that this was the intended solution.  If the last chamber was  _ supposedly _ “”introducing”” test subjects to the idea of avoiding this element, the next one would reasonably be about actively removing the element from one's path.    
  
Unfortunately, that didn’t change the fact that Chell still didn’t know much about these things.  She didn’t know how they worked or what they looked like, and most importantly, she didn’t know how much damage they could do.  If she was going to be dealing with these things in the future, all of that seemed like information she should be aware of.    
  
She needed to get her hands on one of these. She doubted that Aperture wanted her getting an inside look at one of their bits of technology, but from what she had gathered from the setup of this room, they hadn’t made it overly difficult to do so.   
  
She could only assume that whoever designed this chamber figured that any normal test subjects would want to avoid close contact with something that was trying to shoot them, and thus they wouldn’t have to worry about any of them grabbing one of these things from behind and attempting to take it apart. However, Chell wasn’t interested in doing anything normal.   
  
She carefully positioned a portal underneath the turret before aiming the second one as close to the top of the pit as possible. If she simply let it go, the thing would fall into the pit, and that would be the end of it.  However, the moment she fired her second portal, she quickly flipped the switch on her gun and used its third mode to grab the thing in mid-air, stopping it from falling out of reach.   
  
“Put me down.”   
  
The same, high-pitched, robotic voice chirped out of the thing, but Chell ignored it, instead keeping herself focused on backing away from the pit and making sure she kept the turret facing forward so that it couldn’t see her.   
  
It was a bizarre-looking thing, even from behind.  She wasn’t sure what she had expected- perhaps just a pistol on a tripod or something similar- but this certainly wasn’t it.   
  
The machine was an odd, cylindrical shape, its body completely smooth save for the small lines along its sides that indicated moving parts. It stood on three surprisingly feeble-looking legs, and had a small antenna atop its head.   
  
While it clearly couldn’t move much, it still managed to wiggle a little on the end of Chell’s portal gun, chirping various complaints about its predicament. Chell had no doubt that these comments, a little bit too human and sympathetic for her liking, had simply been programmed in to make test subjects feel bad about what they were doing, likely for situations such as these.

  
Slowly, Chell placed the turret down, making sure that its little legs were steady before letting go.   
  
“Are you still there?”   
  
The robot chimed out nearly the moment Chell set it down, only reaffirming her theory that it wasn’t actually aware of its situation, only having programed responses to certain sensations, like that of being picked up.   
  
Now, the two next biggest questions: how to figure out how it functioned, and how to turn it off.   
  
She had hoped to dig around a little in this thing’s insides, but she wasn’t exactly keen on doing that to a live weapon. It would make her life endlessly easier if it just had an off switch somewhere on its back, but this was Aperture, and they rarely did anything to make anybody’s life easier.   
  
Complicated, convoluted, and worthy of caution was Aperture’s unofficial motto, after all.  Having a way to easily shut off a weapon would be far too practical.   
  
She considered just trying to break the thing; she knew she could grab it by one of its legs and simply bash it into the ground, but that somehow seemed like a bad idea for several reasons.  Not only was being so rough with a weapon likely far from the safest idea, but there was also a chance that she’d destroy whatever she was trying to get a better look at.   
  
It wasn’t like Chell had any tools on hand, either, so surgically opening this thing up was seeming less and less like a possibility.   
  
However, there was one thing that she could try.   
  
She had yet to see what the turret actually looked like when it fired- how its mechanisms functioned and what it needed to do.  While she couldn’t quite see its front, the seams along its sides gave her a bit of an idea of what it did. She just needed to test it.   
  
With nothing to do but hope she had quicker reflexes than this thing’s reaction time, she reached around and waved her arm in front of the turret, breaking into its line of sight.   
  
“I see you.”   
  
As soon as she heard its voice, she quickly pulled her hand back to safety, watching as, no more than a second later, her suspicions were confirmed, as the turret’s sides opened up like wings and it fired a few shots in the space where Chell’s arm had been only moments before, hitting the sheet of glass in front of them.  Chell heard a crack upon impact, and noted that despite these only being rubber bullets, there was still enough force behind them to leave a spiderweb of a break in the window.   
  
But with its target gone, the turret began to close its wings once more, laser moving around curiously to try to find where Chell had gone.  Before it could fully close, however, Chell acted on impulse, and shoved her fist in the space between the closing side and the main body of the turret, stopping it from closing properly.   
  
Unsurprisingly, the little bot had nothing to say about this; Chell could only assume it hadn’t been programmed for this type of situation.  Despite there being nothing in the way of the second wing, it too stayed in place, as if uncertain what to do.   
  
While the pressure being exerted on her hand was far from pleasant, it mercifully wasn’t as painful as Chell feared, not even close to enough to risk chopping her fingers off if she wasn’t careful. The worst-case scenario she could think of was the possibility of losing circulation if she kept it like that for too long.   
  
But thankfully, she wouldn’t need to.   
  
Using her free hand, she poked around the insides of the turret that she could reach, taking mental notes on whatever she saw.   
  
She was no engineer, but this wasn’t the first time she had gotten a look at Aperture technology.  As it turned out, Aperture liked to reuse parts. Chell could only guess how much money they tended to blow on some of their bigger projects, but she knew that things were certainly a bit financially tight, what with them not having released any of their projects to the public for some years.  Because of this, if there was a failed prototype for something, rather than simply throwing its bits out, Aperture liked to see how much of it they could repurpose into something else.   
  
When one is trapped in an underground facility for three years with little to do for entertainment, breaking apart the thermostat or picking apart the microwave suddenly seemed like fascinating activities.   
  
Chell had been reprimanded for being caught doing those things, of course. Which was why she figured out how to rewire the automatic lock on the door in her room to allow her to sneak out at night and mess with stuff then.     
  
That had been about a year ago, and she still hadn’t been caught. Unlike this part of the facility, the test subject chambers only had a handful of security cameras, rather than having them peppered across every single wall. Because of this, it became quite easy to figure out where they were all placed, what their line of sight was, and what paths one could take to avoid them all together.   
  
Unsurprisingly, this information came in handy.   
  
Sneaking into scientist-only lounges, tinkering with their things, swiping some of their snacks, or simply revelling in the joy of being able to outsmart them- it wasn’t something Chell could afford to be doing every night, but it proved itself to be quite cathartic after a long day of dealing with the scientists being unfair.   
  
It was mostly little things, but eventually, it added up. Chell had begun to notice patterns. Certain parts being reused in different machines, certain wiring being done in odd, yet familiar ways.  While not every one of these franken-machines was an improvement- trying to rewire an old radio to act as a heating unit was one of the stranger ones- it did make them easier to predict.   
  
This turret wasn’t much different.   
  
While admittedly, it did have quite the handful of parts that Chell didn’t recognize, it still had certain things that she found familiar. She could notice the wiring pattern, find materials that she had seen before.   
  
Because of that, it was only a matter of time before she found what she was looking for: manual controls. Specifically, a reset button on the back.   
  
Cautiously, she pressed the button and held it down.     
  
The laser sight flickered in front of her for a moment before going out completely, and the wings moved back and forth, before finally, extending fully, and remaining in place.   
  
Waiting a moment or two to ensure that it wasn’t going to self-destruct, Chell moved her hand in front of it once more, and… nothing. With that giving her a bit of confidence, she turned the turret ever so slightly to face her, wanting to get a better idea of what it looked like.   
  
The front wasn’t drastically different than the back, only differentiated by an optic in the center of its body. It was dark now, but from what Chell had seen of the laser earlier, she could only assume that it was the same shade of red when turned on.   
  
Seeing the size of the eye was good; it allowed Chell to get a vague sense of what its range of sight would really be. She couldn’t know for certain, and thus would do her best to make sure she gave it more space than it might need, but having an estimate was at least somewhat comforting.   
  
Now, she was just left to decide what to do next.    
  
As much as she loved the idea of trying to take this thing apart bit by bit, rebuild it into her own personal weapon and bring havoc to Aperture, she realized that might be difficult. The only tools she had access to were whatever she could swipe off somebody’s desk when she got out at night, and even then she’d need to make sure it was back in its proper place by the time she went back to bed, lest she end up caught with the evidence. And smuggling one of these turrets out of the chamber was out of the question. It was huge, and would be caught on camera in a heartbeat.   
  
If she wanted to use this thing, she’d have to find a way to use it as it was.   
  
And with that thought, her eyes travelled back to the crack in the window.   
  
The glass was there for a reason: to give a glimpse of the rest of the chamber, and from what Chell could see, pieces of the proper puzzle. See parts of it from this angle, parts of it through the hallway, and piece it together from there. You couldn’t shoot portals through the glass; it was just meant to be looked through.

  
But one tiny little detail caught her eye: the portal space by the exit. Supposed to be accessed through a series of jumps in the rest of the room, no doubt. But she could get a clean shot on it from here, and there was a portal space on the side of the pit in front of her.   
  
Her lips twitched into something that was almost a smile before she promptly chased it off her face, taking note of the feeling of one of the chamber’s multiple cameras staring at her.   
  
She pressed the reset button on the back of the turret again, promptly pulling her hand out of the way as its eye flickered back to life and its wings tried to close again.   
  
And with that, she set her plan into motion.   
  
After throwing her arm in front of the turret and pulling it away at the last minute at least three or four times until the glass in front of her was sufficiently cracked, she ended up chucking the turret at it for good measure, the extra weight finally knocking the window out and sending tiny shards of glass everywhere.   
  
The turret let out a cry of displeasure from the bottom of the pit where it landed before deactivating and going quiet, prompting Chell to jump down there with it after placing her first portal on the other side of the room, and then the second on the wall of the pit once she reached the bottom She found herself quite thankful for her implants for breaking her fall, counting her lucky stars that most of the broken glass had fallen out the other side of the room, and thus didn’t end up in her feet.   
  
Stepping through the portal, she landed squarely in front of the exit door, feeling satisfaction flow through her at the sight. Even just a quick glance around this side of the room revealed a complex puzzle with timed jumps and well-placed portals, and she had skipped just about all of it.   
  
There was a moment of nothing before, after about a minute, the exit door opened, leaving Chell to wonder if it was triggered by her weight in front of it or if the scientist watching her had actually deemed this acceptable enough to let her pass.   
  
Proudly stepping through the door, she waited to hear the robotic voice spit out some series of numbers on how quickly Chell completed the test.     
  
Instead…   
  
_ “Test subject #1498. Please refrain from breaking essential test elements. Your completion of this chamber was… unconventional, and provides us with inaccurate data for the effects of the portal gun in its intended use.” _   
  
There had been a slightly longer silence than usual, and when the voice finally spoke, it had  _ scolded _ her.   
  
Chell raised an eyebrow.   
  
So some scientist was annoyed with her and made the automated voice tell her off, sure. The use of the word ‘us’ made that point very clear. But why was it that the robot itself sounded a little bit annoyed?   
  
Chell was imagining things. She knew deep down that she was likely just projecting, assuming the feelings behind the scientists and placing that emotion onto the lifeless voice that conveyed their message.   
  
Besides, she was certain that this was nothing compared to the earful she’d get at the end of the day.   
  
For now, though, that didn’t matter. She hadn’t seen the scientists come down here once so far, so she doubted they would start now. If they had a problem with this, they’d address it once she was finished for the day. Until then?   
  
She had another test chamber to break.   
  
\----------   
  
Aperture seemed to like its turrets, as the next chamber had three, all stationed in different parts of the room. Chell couldn’t grab them this time, and there was no portal space underneath them with which to send them flying.   
  
Chell was supposed to strategically place a hard light bridge to block one, make a jump, move it again to block another, grab a cube, and narrowly avoid the final one. There were no twisting and turning hallways in this one, just a big open room, in which one was expected to go back and forth with only slight changes in their direction, zigzagging past lasers and dodging bullets by only a hair. One slight miscalculation, one wrong step, and it’d be quite easy to be shot again.   
  
Chell supposed she  _ could  _ do it that way… but something else caught her eye.   
  
More of those damn cameras. They watched her, ever still, silently mocking her with their presence. They had started to drive her up the wall with their creepy, silent staring.  But that didn’t mean she couldn’t find a use for them.

  
As it turned out, their placements were all either within her portal gun’s reach or within her own reach if she made the right jump.   
  
That, combined with the fact that they weren’t attached to the wall all that well, meant that it was shockingly easy to rip all four of them off the walls.   
  
And then came the fun part.   
  
Rather than sending herself through the maze of careful jumps to avoid the sights of the turrets, she sent the cameras instead. She built up speed by sending them back and forth through portals, and then sent them crashing into the turrets, all of which possessed the same skinny tripod legs, making them susceptible to being knocked over and thus deactivated, leaving Chell to travel through the chamber however she pleased and then strut out of the room without so much as breaking a sweat.   
  
_ “1498, Aperture Science Observation Devices are an important part of the test. Please stop breaking them.” _   
  
Chell definitely wasn’t imagining it this time. She swore that voice had said ‘please’ with the exasperation of someone pinching the bridge of their nose and looking at the bill the repairs this would all require would add up to.   
  
That wasn’t even mentioning the odd shorthand of calling Chell ‘1498,’ rather than the whole ‘test subject #1498’ title.   
  
It was odd, no doubt about it. Chell would’ve likely stopped to question it a lot further if she didn’t have a whole set of chambers still waiting ahead of her. Continuing her mission was her first priority, and it required her full focus, so she shifted thoughts of the voice to the backburner of her mind.   
  
For now, anyway.   
  
\----------   
  
As it turned out, she didn’t keep it that way for long.   
  
The day went on, and in chamber after chamber, Chell did her best to find a way to do something she shouldn’t. Some were easier than others, providing her ways to practically cheat her way to the end, hardly even doing the puzzle in the first place, while others simply involved her finding little shortcuts or less conventional ways to do the same tasks.   
  
But regardless of if she was smashing cameras or tricking turrets, that voice still pointed out whatever it was that she had done at the end of the test. Technically, it was just scolding her over and over, but the ways in which its tone shifted kept grabbing Chell’s attention.   
  
Whenever she broke something, she knew she heard something akin to annoyance in its voice.  She didn’t know how, she didn’t know why, but she knew it was there. If she still beat the chamber, only in the ‘wrong way,’ the automated voice still made note of it, but sounded notably less irritated with Chell than if she had completely cheated.   
  
By the end of the day, Chell had made up her mind on something.   
  
It had to be a scientist.   
  
She knew that voice modifiers existed, and it would only make sense. Somebody was overseeing these tests, playing the role of lifeless machine by hiding their voice.  Why? Chell couldn’t say. Perhaps it was one of their strange mental experiments. But either way, Chell knew it to be true.   
  
Whoever that voice was definitely wasn’t happy with her, and Chell knew better than to think that she’d be able to sneak back to her room unnoticed.   
  
  
“Chell!”   
  
She had gotten about halfway to the cafeteria when she heard the sound of footsteps behind her, accompanied by a voice she recognized calling her name out.   
  
Turning around, she was met with a now-familiar bearded face. Jake Waller.   
  
In his hands was a small stack of crisp white papers, looking as if they had just come out of the printer minutes ago.

  
Somehow, she had the feeling the papers had something to do with her behavior today, and she could only hope they weren’t informing her of her misbehavior and throwing her somehow further into Aperture’s debt.   
  
“I had been hoping to catch up with you before dinner; I only need a moment of your time. I wish to talk about your test results from today.”  
  
 _Oh boy, here it was._  
  
“We’ve been informed that despite your little slip-up yesterday, you sped through the rest of this test track at record speed. I don’t know how you’re doing it, but keep it up.”  
  
 _...Wait, what?_  
  
Chell’s racing mind screeched to a halt, all thoughts of what she would say in response to complaints suddenly escaping her as she was presented with _praise._   
  
For a moment longer than she’d have liked to admit, she simply stared at the man, wide-eyed and blinking, her brain desperately trying to analyze the situation to figure out if she missed something. Perhaps this was some kind of incredibly subtle sarcasm. Or maybe she really did hit her head harder than expected yesterday, and this was all some kind of delusion.  
  
Still somewhat stunned, she brought her hands up to begin signing one of the many questions that was popping up in her mind with each second that passed, before noticing the somewhat uncomfortable look on Waller’s face that reminded her that he didn’t know ASL.  
  
Letting out a huff of frustration, she reached forward and snatched a piece of paper out of Waller’s hands before he could protest, as well as a pen he had sitting in the pocket of his lab coat.  
  
Scribbling a message on the empty side of the paper, she reminded herself to be careful of what she said. Maybe he hadn’t gotten wind of her misbehavior yet? It would be counterproductive to ask ‘why aren’t you yelling at me,’ as that wasn’t exactly a _bad_ thing. Instead, she settled for a slightly safer question.  
  
 _‘What do you mean, ‘informed?’ Don’t you oversee the tests yourself?’_  
  
While she didn’t know if Jake Waller himself was the one looking this over, the way he had said ‘we’ lead Chell to believe that the whole team of scientists who oversaw this project had just been informed. But if all of them had only just been informed, then _who was watching her test?_  
  
“Oh, no, sorry to disappoint you there. We stopped overseeing the portal gun tests personally a long time ago. There’s a lot of data to work with, and we can’t afford to be using our time to oversee them all personally. We’ve got a computer that handles that for us. Observes testing, records the results, and gives the data to us in compact reports. Less room for human error, and far more to the point without any unnecessary details clogging up the data.”  
  
Waller gestured with his papers as he spoke, shrugging his shoulders as if this were unimportant, as if it were common knowledge that Chell didn’t need to care about.  
  
But even as he gave Chell his farewells and sent her back on her way to dinner, she found her mind suddenly far, far away from whatever her test results actually were.  
  
There was a computer watching her in those chambers.  That voice system belonged to it.  
  
That scientist had said this project had a ‘more complex voice system?’ That was for certain. If nobody was telling this thing what to say and how to say it, that meant that it _knew_ what Chell was doing today all on its own. It was watching, and getting _annoyed._  
  
If a computer was capable of getting irritated, then there was already more to all this than Chell had originally thought.  
  
And she wanted to know more.  
  



	4. Chapter 4

Chell felt as if she were sleepwalking from that point onwards, as she made her way to the cafeteria in a daze, half-heartedly shoving some mostly edible food into her mouth, and still as she went back to her room in the same manner.  
  
Far from the determination she had started the day off with, Chell’s brain was scattered, trying to pick up the pieces of information that she had gathered from her experiences thus far, but finding herself with a jigsaw of a puzzle to put together.  
  
Everything had seemed positively _simple_ this morning. The scientists set her up to test, they were watching her through those cameras, and they had gotten her shot at. In return, Chell was going to blatantly disregard their rules, and solve the test chambers in any way besides how they were intended. That made sense.  
  
But now? Now it, turned out that the scientists weren’t watching her; a robot was. Every time Chell passed a camera and felt like she was being watched, it was by a machine that could track her every movement. Every choice she made, every second shaved off her testing time by a particularly good jump? All just ones and zeros, condensed down into a simplified report for the scientists to merely glance over at the end of the day.  
  
What _was_ this thing? If it was just a simple program, then why was it capable of tonal shifts? Not even drastic ones either; just small, almost _natural_ -sounding changes in tone. It _understood_ what Chell was doing, and had the ability to seem irritated about it.  Nothing about that sounded simple.  
  
And that wasn’t even opening the can of worms that Chell got to by the time she was trying to settle in for the night, a thought that quickly dashed any hopes of falling asleep quickly: _why hadn’t her misbehavior been in the report?_ _  
_  
If this thing was being used to track data from the testing, surely something like ‘unruly test subject’ or ‘exploitable flaws in test chamber’ would be mentioned. Chell didn’t like to _brag,_ but she had gone around every single test chamber they provided. Even if that wasn’t the data they wanted, it was still data. And if this robot had the ability to recognize this behavior in the first place, even scold her for it, what was stopping it from putting that in its report to the scientists?  
  
It could just be a bug in the system; that was a very real possibility that Chell knew she ought not to disregard, but still, that answer didn’t sit right with her. A nagging little something in the back of her mind told her that it wasn’t true.  
  
She needed to know more about this thing. No, not just wanted, _needed_.  Aperture was filled to the brim with mysteries, stones that you weren’t supposed to turn over, countless things swept under the rug or shoved into closets. Chell, for the most part, respected that. She let Aperture have its secrets.  
  
Not this. This was one secret that Aperture would not be able to keep from her.  
  
Chell couldn’t say with complete certainty why she needed this so badly, but a gut feeling told her that it had something to do with everything else in the portal testing- how empty it was, how there wasn’t a single scientist to be seen down there, not one other test subject. It was just Chell and the eyes of this machine.  
  
If Chell was to spend an indefinite amount of time with a robotic overseer, she felt that she had the right to at least know more about who was watching her. At the very least, during the Longfall testing, she’d known the faces and names of the people who oversaw her tests.  
  
If she could gather that information here? Maybe she’d be satisfied.  
  
  
\----------  
  
The next morning, she got up with close to the same amount of vigor as she had the day before- despite the fact that her bruises were still quite sore, and were now turning a wonderful variety of splotchy colors. This time, though, she found that it wasn’t anger that burned in her stomach.  
  
Chell had not forgotten her displeasure with the scientists- just because they had a robot watching her instead of their own eyes didn’t make them any less responsible for what went on inside of _their_ facility- but today, she found that _curiosity_ was just a little bit stronger.  
  
She power-walked to the portal testing area, but an irritated scowl was not present on her face.  Instead, her brows were thoughtfully furrowed, and she found herself continuing to mull the situation over as she walked, only paying just enough attention to her surroundings to make sure she wasn’t going to accidentally walk into the wrong section of the facility and stumble into the middle of another of Aperture’s mantis-related experiments.  
  
Her current plan? To do more of the same. She would continue what she had started- it wasn’t like she could just get out of testing to go discover all of Aperture’s secrets- and see what information she could gather from there. Having this robot watching her test might very well be the closest that Chell would be able to ever get to it, as somehow she doubted that the scientists who created it would be happy to just let a random test subject go sniffing around its servers.  
  
Besides, this way, she was still killing two birds with a single stone. While the scientists might not be directly seeing what she was doing in their test chambers, Chell was still royally fucking up their data, and likely causing them a headache down the line. It was delayed gratification, but still just as sweet.  
  
  
Chell reached the portal testing section of the facility with a few minutes to spare, to her relief.  She had wanted to get here with just enough time to try something.  
  
She quickly scanned the area for a camera, which didn’t take long to find, and made her way over to it until she was standing as close as possible, directly in its line of sight.  
  
Her gaze was fixed on its optic, holding a stare for at least a minute, doing nothing but slowly blinking. Sure, she had no _proof_ that the robot was watching through this exact camera at this exact moment; she had no reason to believe that she wasn’t simply making a fool of herself, staring into a security camera… but something told her that wasn’t the case. A tingling feeling across the skin of the back of her neck, causing hairs to stand on end. Something was watching back through that camera, she just _knew_ it.  It was a silent staring contest- one that, unfortunately, Chell knew she couldn’t win.  
  
Slowly, she stepped back, looking at a nearby clock and begrudgingly realizing it was time to actually get to work, even if she had been hoping for a little more from the camera. She knew it could move side to side, and had hoped for some kind of recognition other than just a gut feeling.  
  
Alas, no such luck. But Chell supposed she was just being hasty. That might not have been enough to warrant a reaction from this elusive electronic.  
  
Hopefully, Chell’s next actions would be.  
  
\----------  
  
Unsurprisingly, the first chamber of the day was just as dangerous-looking as the ones before it. Turrets adorned the room, with at least ten lined up against one of the walls, looking far too much like a firing squad for Chell’s liking.  
  
There was something to be said for Aperture at least being upfront with their usage of them at this point, but giving them credit for that would be grasping at straws. Being blatant with their dangerous tests didn’t absolve them from making them that way in the first place; it was just slightly less deceptive.  
  
Still, Chell took a hard stance with these things. She absolutely refused to throw herself in front of these turrets the way Aperture wanted her to. While some of the other tests were tricky, she would at least make an effort to solve their puzzles using her own wit, albeit in her own way.  Dangerous jumps and careful timing- those she’d work around. Those she could feel proud about completing, even more so if she did so in an unusual fashion.  
  
But she didn’t play with turrets. There was no way to excuse their presence in these tests, and Chell was not simply going to roll over and accept their use.  
  
  
It was this line of thinking that sent her into her plan for this chamber, determining that while the intended solution was indeed doable, she still needed to make a point. Yesterday, she had sped through test chambers, either by solving them in new, faster ways or by simply cheating her way to the end.  
  
Today likely couldn’t be done the same way. She knew hers wasn’t a faster solution, nor was it even the most convenient. But she wanted to make something very, very clear to the robot watching her through those cameras, and hope that her message made her way into its little report.  
  
So, she spared a quick glance in a camera’s direction before getting to work.  
  
First, she got her hands on one of the turrets, swiftly knocking it over to deactivate it before jumping out of range of the others. Then, she used its small metal legs as a makeshift tool to dig under the tiny crack in a slightly loose metal panel by the entrance.  
  
Chell knew she must’ve spent thirty minutes alone just trying to wiggle the panel loose enough to start to pry open, but that didn’t matter.  What mattered was that eventually, it worked. She managed to pull a large metal panel off of the wall, holding it upright by the now-broken supports on the backside.  
  
Holding it with one arm- which was no easy task, considering it was quite heavy- she made her way forward into the chamber, her makeshift shield braced against the onslaught of rubber bullets that shot forth only moments after Chell crossed into the turrets’ line of sight.  
  
She let out a harsh exhale of breath, her knuckles white as she kept her grip strong and pushed forward. The panel was big enough to keep her covered from fire, but if she let it slip out of place by so much as an inch, a rubber bullet could quite easily hit her. So Chell kept her pace slow, steady. Each step forward seemed like it was the first of thousands; it felt like she’d never truly reach the other side of the room.  
  
Yet, mercifully, there was a fluorescent light at the end of the tunnel.  By the time Chell stopped gritting her teeth and keeping her head down long enough to look up, she realized that she wasn’t being shot at anymore and let her makeshift shield clatter to the ground, now thoroughly dented.   
  
She let her shoulders relax, slowly bringing her gaze to the now-open exit door- or rather, what was above it. Another camera, pointed at her with what Chell could only describe as an impatient stare. As if it were tapping its metaphorical foot somewhere, arms crossed over its chest as it huffed to itself, waiting for Chell to exit the chamber so that it could say something.  
  
This was, Chell knew, placing human characteristics on a machine that likely just didn’t appreciate ‘bad data,’ but the mental image did bring a small smirk to Chell’s face as she strode forward.  
  
 _“1498, I hope you realize that destroying test chambers does_ ** _not_** _provide us with sufficient data, and just makes this all take longer. If you continue this behavior, you will be asked to repeat the test until you can complete it_ ** _without_** _property damage.”_ _  
_ _  
_Chell raised an eyebrow as the thing spoke, quickly finding another camera to stare into as the robot scolded her.  She couldn’t quite tell if those were empty threats or not, but admittedly, she didn’t like the sound of being forced to waste time doing it over again.  
  
Slowly, she crossed her arms over her chest, narrowing her eyes and fixing the camera’s optic with a glare. She wasn’t going to budge on this issue. She was going to continue to cheat on every single chamber that dared to place her on the opposite end of a turret.  
  
There was no further response from the robotic voice, leaving Chell to wonder whether her message hadn’t been understood or if the computer simply had nothing else to say. Maybe it was limited to only one sentence per post-test interaction. Besides, Chell knew she couldn’t expect immediate action. As far as she knew, these chambers were premade by the scientists, placed together per section. If change were to be made, it would be something to look out for tomorrow.  
  
She was skeptical, but deemed it possible nonetheless. As the robot had stated, Chell’s misbehavior just made things take longer. If it was a logical being- which Chell could only assume a computer program would be- it could put two and two together and inform the scientists that, for optimal results of testing the portal device, it would be simply easier to remove the turrets, and find other kinds of puzzles to use.  
  
Of course, that was, unfortunately, also working on the assumption that Aperture would ever take the easier path. It seemed that the company was bullheaded to the core. If they had their mind set on doing something in a certain way, that's how it would be handled, no matter how absurd the methods were.   
  
That wasn’t even mentioning their absolute disregard of anything that a test subject wanted. It didn’t matter what they asked for- better hours, a replacement for any one of the dozens of flickering light bulbs in their rooms, a fixed heating vent- it was always too much for Aperture to bother with. If they wanted to use turrets, it would likely be fairly difficult to convince them otherwise, no matter how much Chell tried to make using them seem unappealing.  
  
But she could only hope that maybe, just _maybe_ if it came from this computer’s report, they’d take it more seriously. They likely built and programed the thing themselves, so if it told them to do something, perhaps that would be enough to get them to listen.  
  
It was with that thought in her mind that Chell made her way to the next chamber, prepared for anything...  
  
...yet still finding herself surprised.  
  
Laid out in front of her was a massive room, with dozens of platforms, several hard light bridges, cubes, buttons, and portal spaces galore. It was as colorful with its puzzle elements as anything could be with the test chambers’ limited palette.  
  
But most notable of all? No matter how hard Chell looked, no matter how much she squinted her eyes in every nook and cranny of the chamber to see if she could spot a trace of the faint red laser, she couldn’t see the presence of a single turret.  
  
At first, she couldn’t believe it. Ever since the first chamber they had been introduced in, Aperture had been quite literally trigger-happy, peppering puzzle after puzzle with these things, throwing them around every corner, lining them up by the dozens to fire seemingly endless supplies of rubber bullets at Chell. So to suddenly have none was worthy of suspicion, to say the least.  
  
Still, as she took her first cautious steps forward to begin to try to dissect the room, she couldn’t help but notice the camera’s gaze on her again. Different from just the overarching feeling of being watched that Chell was used to, somehow every camera she was in line of sight with seemed to be looking pointedly at her, as if silently saying _‘Well? Get on with it.’_ _  
_  
This was coincidence, no doubt. Chell had just so happened to run into a chamber without turrets, or perhaps with ones that she just couldn’t see. There was no conceivable way that her message had been relayed to the scientists that quickly. No matter how fast the computer sent the info, the scientists would not be able to act fast enough to actively edit the chamber ten seconds before Chell entered it. They were still only human.  
  
Yet, despite that being the most logical explanation, somehow everything about this chamber seemed very… deliberate. Chell wouldn’t go so far as to say it had been created for her specifically- no, if the scientists could do that, they’d likely just have a chamber with the single purpose of causing her emotional and physical pain in as many ways possible- but she couldn’t shake the feeling that this had been done on purpose.  
  
Chell chewed on her bottom lip, trying to balance her current train of thought with an attempt to dissect the chamber in front of her. With so many elements in a single test, there was ample opportunity for Chell to misuse one of them. She could cheat, no doubt. If she looked hard enough, there’d be a loophole somewhere.  
  
But… Chell looked elsewhere, for a way to properly solve the chamber- albeit in the most unconventional way possible.  
  
She told herself that it was for the sole reason of positive reinforcement. If the scientists really were getting feedback from her actions, perhaps they ought to know that removing the unfair, unneeded, dangerous element of the turrets was a smart move. They could earn a certain amount of Chell’s cooperation if they played nice.  
  
But only a certain amount. Chell had never said she was going to break _every_ test chamber given to her; she just had to break away from the intended path. To question the solution given to her, and find one that suited her better.  
  
And in this case? Maybe it wouldn’t have to be so violently against the rules.  
  
  
\----------  
  
  
Chell wouldn’t say she had enjoyed the chamber- partially because she physically _couldn’t_ say it, but equally because it was an appalling thought. An activity she would enjoy would be feeling sunlight again, eating real food, living in a home with more space than a college dorm, sleeping in until eleven AM. Those were activities that she would enjoy.  
  
Whatever had just happened was not ‘fun.’ It was… something.  
  
Chell stood in front of the open exit door without walking towards it further, instead sparing a moment to cast a glance at the room behind her. It had been a proper challenge, juggling everything in the chamber at once, trying to solve it her own way. But it hadn’t been _dangerous_. Well, perhaps it might’ve been if she didn’t have her Longfall implants- anyone else might’ve gained a _sm_ all handful of broken bones while using Chell’s technique- but aside from the risks that were naturally present with precarious jumps and heights, there was nothing needlessly dangerous in the chamber.  
  
She had been extremely cautious at first, expecting with each step some hidden horror that would pull the metaphorical rug out from under her feet. But it never came. There were twists and turns, but nothing that Chell wasn’t able to handle naturally. She let herself slip into her own rhythm, moving through the test chamber with the purpose, not of causing mayhem, but of simply completing the puzzle. Each action had come as naturally as breathing, every twist and turn of her body happening without her needing to think about it.  
  
It was uncomfortably similar to how she used to feel skiing. The same sense of losing herself in the moment, letting instincts rule over thought, moving effortlessly through a course.   
  
Of course, the moment she thought that, she violently rejected the notion, shaking her head and forcing herself to walk forward, trying to dispel any further thoughts on the matter. That was how Aperture would get her. It would lure her into a false sense of security, then rip it out from under her.  
  
She would not fall for it.  
  
...But she woudln’t complain if more test chambers were like that last one.  
  
 _“1498, your methods are... unorthodox, but duly noted. Please proceed.”_  
  
Chell wouldn’t have thought it was possible for a disembodied voice to sound like it had suddenly perked up, but somehow, this thing had managed. Despite the overall robotic tone that never left its voice, the irritation from the previous chamber had seemed to drastically lessen- to the point where, if she didn’t know better, Chell would think it sounded as if this thing was _personally pleased_ with her results.  
  
It was as if what Chell had done in this chamber had caused the computer some level of intrigue, a genuine curiosity in what Chell did, so long as she wasn’t actively breaking the chambers themselves.  
  
This all required further experimentation, Chell decided.  
  
She _then_ decided that thought alone sounded far too science-y for her liking, and she found herself pulling a bit of a face before moving on to the next chamber.  
  
\----------  
  
Chell fell into a sort of dance after that, carefully stepping back and forth on different methods, testing the waters to see what actions prompted what reactions. With each chamber that passed, she found herself less focused on causing trouble for the scientists, and more and more focused on doing something that would earn an interesting little tidbit from the robotic voice through the speakers once she finished.  
  
She wanted to learn more about this thing, and any little scrap of information was useful.  
  
As it turned out, it seriously did not appreciate Chell’s removal of cameras.  Any attempt to break or move one, regardless if she was using to cheat or not, earned a response that, if spoken by a human, would have been passive-aggressively grumbled under their breath.  
  
Of course, Chell figured that only made sense.  Time after time, the voice had made it very clear that the cameras were vital for ‘proper data collection,’ which Chell translated to ‘I can’t see what you’re doing, and that annoys me.’   
  
This thing was _interested_ in what Chell was doing.  Before, it had merely rattled off the results of her test in the same, uninterested, apathetic, positively lifeless tone. But now that Chell had changed her behavior, everything this robot said sounded more and more invested.  
  
Every time Chell forwent a proper test solution to use a loophole, the voice sounded almost disappointed. Whenever Chell found a more effective way to solve a puzzle, there was a hint of something that might’ve been excitement in the robot’s tone, like that of someone who was moving closer to the edge of their seat, widening their eyes just a little to avoid missing a single moment of what happened next.  
  
It was a barely noticeable shift in tone; barely even a pitch of difference. But considering the deafening silence of everything else in this part of the facility, Chell could fairly easily pick up on it.  
  
Now, as she entered her last chamber of the day, Chell had made up her mind.  She knew that this voice was reacting in real time, that it was watching her movements and was capable of understanding what she was doing.   
  
And so?  Chell decided to greet this thing. Properly.  
  
Keeping her hand at her side and moving as discreetly as possible, she made sure she was within line of sight of at least one of the cameras, and quickly signed ‘hello,’ letter by letter. Barely noticeable to the human eye, but hopefully easily spotted by the careful, attentive eye of a computer.  
  
She had no way of knowing if this was really worth a shot or if it would simply make her look like a fool. She was, after all, attempting to say hello to a _computer system._ Aperture was far from having the most mentally sound inhabitants, but most people didn’t go around striking up small talk with a refrigerator or a radio.  Talking to electronics was likely a whole new level of nutty, but… in the end it couldn’t really hurt.  
  
Worst case scenario, either Chell would be ignored, or by random chance, a scientist would just so happen to take today to glance at the camera feeds, spot and understand what Chell had done, and share a good laugh with his co-workers over the silly little test subject attempting to have a conversation with lines of code.  
  
Best case scenario? Maybe something interesting would come of all this.  
  
Of course, there was no immediate response. Chell had expected as much.  The voice never spoke while Chell was in a chamber; only after she had finished it.  It was this knowledge that pushed Chell to solve the chamber just a little bit faster than usual, constantly throwing glances over her shoulder to look at whichever camera was closest.    
  
By the time she finished, she was out of breath, having flown through a long chamber as quickly as humanly possible. She hadn’t stopped in-between jumps to catch her breath, nor taken a moment to collect herself after tripping up in the middle of it.  She hadn’t cared about the chamber or its contents; she just wanted to see what was at the end of it.  
  
She practically bounded through the exit, skidding to a halt and staring up at the camera, waiting not-so-patiently for its response.  
  
It was silent for a few moments longer than usual, and Chell tried her best to picture what a computer would look like deliberating over what to say next. She could almost hear a non-existent hum of thought from the robot as it took its sweet time to come up with a response.  
  
Chell was practically tapping her foot against the ground by the time it finally spoke.  
  
 _“1498, your test scores for this track are impressive, **discounting** all the invalid data. Please endeavor to keep up proper testing behaviors in the future. And… remember to keep all personal, non-testing-related activities reserved until after the test has been completed.”  
_  
  
Chell couldn’t help the small, satisfied smile that found its way onto her lips. It wasn’t exactly a ‘hello to you too,’ but considering she was talking to a robot, acknowledgement in any fashion was just about as good as she could hope for.  
  
She gave a small nod towards the camera before making her way out of the portal testing section, feeling rather proud of herself.  
  
She still didn’t know as much as she wanted to about this robot- who had made it, how advanced it truly was, what it looked like, how it functioned, and why it was able to do what Chell had seen it do- but she knew __more.  
  
And with each little bit of information she gathered, the more curious she found herself becoming.  
  
This Portal Project had been a mystery from the first day Chell had been assigned to it, with its strangely abandoned halls and lack of widespread knowledge across the rest of the facility. But this voice? It took the cake.  Chell knew there was more to it than first met the eye; that much she was certain of. And while she definitely intended to continue her previous method of catching this robot’s eye- or, optic- with unusual, attention-grabbing testing tactics, she knew that would only get her so far.  
  
Chell was going to have to get more data from somewhere, and she had the feeling that just asking nicely wouldn’t get her anywhere. Aperture was a treasure trove full of information to be uncovered.  
  
You just had to know where to look. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check out more of this AWESOME fanart by the-dangerous-mute-lunatic on tumblr! I am forever grateful for all the awesome stuff she creates for my writing, and all the fantastic support she's given me. Please, go give her art tons and tons of love.
> 
> http://the-dangerous-mute-lunatic.tumblr.com/post/174612672844/caged-birds-dont-sing-a-portal-fic-by


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